


A Bleeding Heart in Longhand

by serpentynka



Series: Sketchy [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: An artist in love, Angst, Art, Closeted Relationship, Depression, Developing Relationships, Established Mycroft/Work, Freestyle journaling, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mycroft IS the British Government, Parallel account, Photography, Pining, Political Intrigue, Recovery, Ruminations, Sexual Frustration, Travel, dress up play, finery, heart surgery, serpentynka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-03-05 04:13:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 90
Words: 184,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3105242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serpentynka/pseuds/serpentynka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strung along "for a case" at the start, a guileless, kindhearted draughtsman, Alexander Nussbaum, has gradually become Sherlock's closest non-John friend.  One day, Alex encounters an elegantly-dressed gentleman with an umbrella -- who seems bent on playing a game of his own.  What could the British Government want of this clever but lonely person, of great artistic talent and fragile health, with a noisy heart?  The answer threatens to become a new thorn in Sherlock's side, the size of a man.<br/>For the gorgeous Marc.<br/>Playlist for ABHIL <a href="http://8tracks.com/rsa-ltd/a-bleeding-heart-in-longhand">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hand-stitched

**Author's Note:**

> PLAYLIST by RSA-LTD  
> .................................  
> 1\. Suede "The Beautiful Ones"  
> 2\. The Clientele "I Wonder Who We Are"  
> 3\. Pale Saints "Kinky Love"  
> 4\. Morphine "Bo's Veranda"  
> 5\. Radiohead "Permanent Daylight"  
> 6\. Tindersticks "Rented Rooms (Swing Version)"  
> 7\. Boards Of Canada "Everything You Do is a Balloon"  
> 8\. Arab Strap "Packs of Three (Peel Session)"  
> 9\. Lush "Cul de Sac"  
> 10\. Portishead "Revenge of the Number (Numb Remix)"  
> 11\. Peter Murphy "Strange Kind of Love"  
> 12\. ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead "To Russia My Homeland"  
> 13\. Mazzy Star "Roseblood"  
> 14\. Pulp "Bar Italia"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1:70

The life and times of a bleeding heart in longhand

By Alexander George Adalbert Nussbaum

  

_15\. Nov._

Andreas gave me this book as a parting-ways gift last week and said, “What happened that Saturday didn’t come out of nowhere.  I care.”  He called the ambulance after the attempted kiss had gone about as wrong as things can, with “attempted” and “kiss” and me all together.  

That was the least self-explanatory introduction I might have given.  It may be safer to start from simple facts.  This book has fallen into the clutches of a Londoner, recently turned 40, presently single & living on his own. 

I resemble 3 dear relatives, mainly Mum, and it’s a privilege to, even with the pressure from above not to do anything silly to dishonour anyone.  

I might razor this out already?  That was getting a bit ridiculous. I meant that if I didn’t resemble them, the rest wouldn't matter. It's unremarkable: six foot one-half inch, presently 148 pounds when in house clothes, as I am today. Dark blond hair, grey at the ears -- long story, a fair-sized nose, eyes blue to grey, &c.  Of late, far too many things come down to the problem of mattering/not mattering & need too much explanation.  All of those I've had the fortune to resemble & love are gone:  I have survived both of my parents, my two guardians, and my older brother, David, whose 45th birthday would have been yesterday.  I'm thinking about him a lot.  Also, I am looking for my footing because I have just returned to England (& nobody) after a fascinating twelve weeks (24. Aug. - 07. Nov.) working on-site in Linz, Austria, arranged by my best friend, SH.  Whom I adore and really ought to text this evening about tomorrow.  All that said, my hand is begging to rest again so I will pick up later on. 

20:35     It’s later on.  When did I even write things out, last? Thinking over supper re. how journalling was among integrated methods we were taught in Uni (1st yr) to recommend as a means of self-discovery/self-explication.  Most of us starting out that semester seemed in need of means & method, myself included.  I have mixed feelings about undertaking a messy process on such lovely ecru pages because I just noticed how they're sewn. Adding things will wreck it, slicing them out will, too. Ah, well. When one lives alone, the paths of self-discovery are rather well-trodden already & having a written record becomes a sort of chastisement:  1) still cannot bear appearance in mirror; 2) could not bring self to orgasm; 3) finds coordinating clothing every bit as tiresome as yesterday; 4) cannot summon energy to text best friend; 5) has not found a working biro in the flat (thus best rapidograf, why not); 6) cannot be bothered to ring list of cardio specialists S recommended, to keep on with the previous 5 items for more years to come?  

The self-indulgent griping (cf. above) points to presence and lack in the wrong places, I know how it looks.  I would like very much to fight this, believe me.  At the moment I’d be happiest to finally just get the hell off this sofa, text S and see him up close again.  His love affair with his doctor is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever had the good luck to see happening to someone.  Yes, I am outsourcing some things.  Vicariously finding the perfect man, for example.  I think I’d better stop there. 

21:55     (Sorry, volume, your beauty will not save you.)  The perfect man thing -- I’m usually able to talk myself out of things I can't take & no, I couldn’t take it right now, anyhow.  But once in a while, timing be damned, you come across your ‘type’ in material form, and he is so unfairly close by, in all his blond, ingenious, resourceful, polite & elegant Swedish glory as to silence all such talking-the-self-out-of-anything, so you talk yourself in, and in even further, imagining him.  Particularly that, ahem, he has long fingers, like mine, did I say so?  No?  One has ideas and is not sorry for them, at all.  Yesterday he wore black trousers with gorgeous drape and an off-centre tie front & forwent pants beneath; the frontal lobe took charge and I might have leaned over and taken that tie in my foolish teeth, he was so close during that presentation, Lord knows what I might have done if I thought I’d even survive what would happen shortly (far too shortly) after.  My project manager, my boss, Dr. Jens Lindberg, descendant of Vikings, ‘fire of my loins’.  I am half-mad tonight and it's over someone's trousers.  The potential of trousers. Kill me.  S just texted back.  Will see him at eleven tomorrow.


	2. One forgets

_16\. Nov._

I can’t remember when I last stayed up so late, much less in order to write. Now it’s just after 8 & I will not get back to sleep, so here we are, good morning.  I managed to write all sorts of disconnected rot last night. I hadn’t decided whether my new book ought to be a confessor.  It should for now, poor thing.  I’m not terribly experienced with the writing-things-out route, in spite of adherence to many unwanted routines, so it’s bound to be awful.  Thankfully, it is for no one but me, and I can promise myself not to look back too much.  Can I not.  

I cannot.  This is one of the main problems I wish I could explain better.  Were it worth explaining.  "Worth what to whom", more accurately.

That was starting to sound rather lonely, so let's add a fellow for company?  I brought Andreas into this from the first word.  Whatever-that-was with him still bothers me, mainly that I didn't see it coming.  I mentioned the Linz stint.  In a single-sentence nutshell:  I worked in a team ranging from 5 to 8 members, of civil engineers, draughts-people, and contractors & had occasional meetings with architects, concerning a bridge project and some revitalisation in its surrounds; Andreas works for JIL Group's Austrian partner/Schwestergesellschaft. One might say we were like bookends & theoretically working together though he was weird about things from day 1, standoffish & straight-acting, which is well within cultural bounds there, & from my side more than fine, "the other gay bloke on the team", in relation to him, enough. 

(Look:  it’s half 10 and I’m not entirely dressed & S is even more punctual than the Austrians.)

14:40     So nice to see S again, after all that Skyping, which feels unauthentic even if you care very much for the voice and images you have before you.  He’s looking a bit drawn and was quiet, as he goes, meaning more listening than usual from his side, maybe a bad day?  He was happier when we met at Heathrow (at least joking, then).  I think he’s worried about J being back at work, at the surgery, with headaches, which I totally understand, poor dear.  S mentioned something about coming up against a certain medical matter of his own and then laughed it off, weirdly, remarking that he has no intention of relativising when we already *ought to be* visiting X or Y, for opinions on the valve.  The rub being that I've got more than my fill re. mechanical valves & also knowledge that it will be done in the first week of January, tentatively on S’s birthday, awaiting confirmation, as there are a number of us that day.  Everything I’ve heard and read makes me wonder if I’m doing the right thing by agreeing to a life of taking Warfarin or equivalent thinners when the side effect list includes necrosis and chronic indigestion, hair loss, memory issues, and so forth, dangers of bleeding and bruising, &c.  It is mortifying to imagine which bit in the lottery of thirty or so side effects I will win for life, as I tried to explain to S.  Gracious Peter.  The things we go in for.  Surgery, pills.  Chatter.  Blokes. 

Well, S is beautiful.  I’d managed to forget in the last month how I can never look at his mouth for long.  He remembers and with even better retrieval.  And we still skirt it.  Not something I should probably write, here.  

All right, I'm writing it, too bad:  the full, rather improbably-shaped mouth on my best friend is truly one of a kind & I've always thought so & imprudently told him (what got into me that day I can’t even remember) that his lips were "made to be worshipped" (OMG pathetic), less than one coffee = maybe 15 minutes after meeting him, at the most.  Libertine excesses...or I had a profligate-ish day, or I don’t even know what excuse to offer up to the paper gods.  He fascinated me.  Still can get to me, at times.  

Sophie was no help ("Let's take a picture, new phone, you're lovely in blue!") so when S and J walked in, she labelled J as "needs cheering" (quite right) & I said, "the brunet needs it more", and when he walked up and asked in a sudden blush (horrid! now I know how he works a chap over) if he could chat with the painter, "to hear about his process", Sophie kicked my ankle, winked, and left us, brutal woman.  S(H) drew me in like a collapsed sun.  I mean, every fibre of my contemptible animal-self wanted a blow-job from that man.  And S knows as well as I do that if we’d carried on with that luscious talk and petting in my lift, and if I’d not gone a gentleman’s route and tried to kiss him on the mouth first, &c, we might have.  We were both gagging for it & even on the way back to the cafe after the 'reveal' that he's working on a case, he couldn’t entirely calm it down.  And one reason I can even speak to him after the way he acted in front of Jens, laughing over my brother's paintings, death, &c, was....X.

This should probably not be on paper.  Too bad, it has to be said, it's eaten at me for months.  We were both let down.  He (thought!) he was pining for a straight bloke, id est ex-military doctor and best friend who’d never love him the same.  Except he didn’t see how J was staring, the entire time.  He was furious at me, I could see it all over him, I even thought they were lovers at first and wanted to get him a coffee.  Okay, understandable, though.  One goes too far, one talks rubbish, thinks cockwise, forgets what he is.  I was about to be.  So.  Foolish.  Like never.  Well, there’s a lot more to say.  

I owe S's tailor a card, encrusted with gems (drawn or perhaps genuine), for dressing all of that so very well.  Did I not mention fabric drape yesterday evening, above?  Yes.  I sense the oncoming exposure of a leitmotif & not something I can easily draw to get over, either.  ‘Hold still, sir, I was sketching the exquisite drape of your trouser fronts’.  But there is nothing, I say to those who are not even reading this, like a well-draped cock.  Anyway. 

For the record:  “Not my intention,” S said.  “I won’t lead you on any further, Alex, no.  This is about a painting of one...Andrew.  I am a consulting detective, &c.  I am not personally interested in you or your work at all, nor that of the painter, who I believe is a relative of yours.”  I might have admitted it all there, but I was stubborn and too ruttish right then.  So...I met Jens.  Perhaps that was the point of it all?  Linz was brilliant, and he is lovely, particularly when he wants to be.  

Lord, I’m exhausted.  I haven’t even got to today.  Today, tomorrow, maybe?  Wasn’t I about to write about Andreas?  I think I need this book far more than it needs my rubbish scribbles. 


	3. Oversharing &c

16th, still.  

"More oversharing" sounds as dangerous as it actually is, to you, book.  But let me: people like S don’t happen to our planet very often, nor do things like that generally happen in my world.  Nobody “happens”, "has happened" and for long enough that I turn to descriptions of fabric, apparently.  Yes, I am aware how that sounds.  I joined the scene late, and have taken long, unintentional breaks.  Any signs?  

I could never do the jargon & still google things after the fact.  Recently, ‘cud-bud’ = not encounters with a ruminant, thankfully, but a cuddle-buddy, an entity I sometimes believe I’d want, though meeting people is discouraging, much like seeing that fact stated in black & white (+ the unsightly addition of "encounters with a ruminant" right there).  And knowing why I mean every letter of it makes it worse.  Will pause for dinner interval.

Here once again.  Regarding dating/meeting blokes, the screening/preening bits are tiresome, as is getting to know people just below the surface & letting them see me & watching them realise that the effort is disproportionate to the prize.  Add distaste for parties, an intolerance of alcohol, a certain lack of knowledge in areas that matter greatly to many.  The ‘cud-bud’ idea I wrote of earlier on requires the abatement of a chronic bud-shortage & now that I’m back in London I will not go back to the quieter salons which only make (a marginal amount of) sense when one is in the company of at least one family member or trusted friend, who manages introductions and may be counted upon for interventions.  S won't go out that way, with me, even for a laugh.  Of course not.  Sophie’s got an emergency in Edinburgh so we can't go out, either.  Moreover, I’m about to cut out for being cut into.  That does get in one’s way of one's availability.     

I will have to inform Jens at some stage that I’m going on medical leave.  He knows about the party incident in Linz, perhaps from Andreas himself.

Andreas W.  As I started to say, he and I were peers in the same project team.  He was the Konstrukteur, and I was creating aquatints, cutaways and ink studies on the basis of his plans, for informational billboards, brochures, an exhibit, the city's investment portfolios and other press materials about the history & revitalisations, &c. I had my hands full. As well, in the field, stock is limited to whatever is on hand, reduced by 90 percent and further marked down by whichever of my numerous personal charms show through at a given moment.  Looking around for someone to watch me sleep at night would have been ridiculous. When I had a bout of arrhythmia in my last week I went in for a consultation & they took me off the bisoprolol & put me on verapamil hydrochloride. The second day, I started having the feeling that my tongue was vibrating in my mouth, it was disturbing but I ignored it. I never should have gone to that party though in part it was thrown to see me and two others off.  The stress of trying to talk without sounding completely pissed was horrid, so when Andreas took me aside and asked me to dance, meaning everyone would see how poorly I was feeling while not enjoying myself in the least, I told him thanks/no thanks. When he came by and blocked my way to the door after another drink or two and tried to kiss me so I wouldn’t leave without him, I started having balance issues & tried to go sit down, but I couldn’t walk there.  Oskar Lep, the EMT from Cracow who’d got three diplomas and worked in fitting steel banding as well as engineering, came by & said, "But you didn’t drink with us," & I confirmed.  He put together the shallow breathing, faintness, and buzzing tongue as an allergic reaction to my new pills, told Andreas to get useful and got me into my coat. The two of them kept me from falling down the stairs in front of the house.  Lord, embarrassing, but Oskar was so helpful.  Andreas thought he’d set it all off.  Thus the apology and a leather-bound book when I was leaving for London.  Awkward to have been the last resort in a pool of one. Well.

S and I have been talking about portraits again because he's been sketching J.  The one he sent last month for my birthday was so nice but the image he chose was surprising.  It isn’t static, my hand is sort of just there, probably out of focus, I had the beginnings of a cold (I think it was that day) and I wasn’t even looking at the camera on the monitor.  But he did it.  I suppose that’s how he sees me, that’s fine.  

I've also been sketching my own back-in-London self, so we see A) hiding circles under eyes with reading glasses, B) in a rumpled sweater, C) in dire need of a haircut, as per usual.  The honesty with the bed-head here is misleading because I have gone ahead and flattered the lines of my mouth, but that is father’s nose, and I see now I have drawn my Mum and given her a squint.  

There are several thoughts that keep me from losing my head completely, now that I have the valve ahead and have been doing some serious thinking about being back, here.  And where my place is. Mentioning it is sort of silly (“I’ve been thinking.”) but conclusions/lack thereof, as of generally-now, are more-or-less as follow:  1) Grief may never go away.  It may take a cyclic path, or become path-like, sort of like many organic things in the universe tend to, because we are created that way, in our nature.  That one sounded better in the night when listening to David Gilmour, admittedly.  1.5) Death is part of us and should be resisted not with illusions of youth but with true love, just as the age-old conflict between sin and perfection pulls at us all.  2) Let go of pain and hurt immediately, even if it’s messy, and do not hold on to it because it will wreck your heart from the inside, physically.  Need I provide charts?  3) Closure is rarely noticed when it happens and should not be a goal-in-itself.  Do not hope to get "proper closure":  it is akin to a Platonic paragon!  4) Real men choose to forgive, know how to ask for forgiveness, and know when and how to say goodbye.  Their goodbyes are timed wisely and worded even more wisely.  Hmm.  5) The big questions in life are for further research and not to be answered (spoken by an academic!) or we’re delusional (and not likely to get another government grant!  Ha!).

There are more but I have a headache.  The sleet is horrid and I just got a text that my delivery of shopping will be delayed due to the ice on the roads.  I can’t imagine who would send drivers out in lorries to negotiate sheets of ice in the city centre roundabouts.  One can wait for one’s mozzarella and bananas! Though I’ve gone through most of what S gave me.  He’s been learning how to cook things for J, which is so dear of him, I just can’t.  

S is good to talk to because despite the sarcasm he cuts through all the rubbish quickly and the bluntness in it, while trying at times, is still backed by a powerful mind.  I can always count on that.


	4. Should be told

_18\. Nov._

Appointment with Dr. FR, one more referral, to Dr. TM.  “If you have any dental work to do, this is a good time.  Remember that in the future, you will need a round of antibiotics before undertaking dental procedures, due to the risk of bacterial dislodgement infecting the heart, etc.”.  OMG.  And no, I will not set off alarms.  No satisfactory response about increased risks of bleeding/bruising, in which contexts.  “Oh.  You're. Are you planning to be sexually active?”  Well if that isn’t a question to unpack with an entire bottle of ink at my side.   

Six texts from Jens, today.  Still ill in bed.  Needs a nurse...!??

_19\. Nov._

They’re playing carols in the shops, I noticed (sort of, that depends, see below) when I went to Selfridges for a scarf.  I’d set my mind to a brown tick but with the grey it was an instant-uncle effect, perhaps the wrong tonality, too cold.  I started singing ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ without realising, and the help ("Colin" pinned rather low on his chest so as not to compete with collarbone exposure) approached me mid-verse:  “So, yeah, was that a 21st-century improv there?"  "Sorry?" I said, for the best.  But then I had to get subtle:  “No, initially 15th century, but Georgian, actually.”  Colin:  “Right. Looking for something, for yourself?”  As someone with no apparent gift-recipients -- I could literally hear S saying that.  Colin looked at my lips.  (The nasty one in me:  "Half an hour.")  I remembered myself: terribly young, no.  “In fact, a scarf,” I said, and smiled.  (Something warm &c -- the rapid descent to gutter ensuing as he nodded and blinked.  "Warm.  Sure, of course.")  He insisted on standing behind me and wrapping one (also brown) around my neck in the mirror, in a configuration I’d never bother with.  I let him.  His breath on my neck.  I didn’t choose a scarf.  Another day.  

Jens texted seven times today.  If I crossed the line, as he has invited me to (“I won’t make the first move, but you are welcome to” - I don’t know how to read into that, + if he still has that room-mate, I'll ask S) and tell myself it would be to meet him halfway, I would be lying.  He’s my boss, the company is his, and I am one of 16 independent contractors in-house, not to mention the 11 with permanent contracts.  Which he has mentioned giving me, starting in January.  Meeting him halfway is dangerous and I can’t bring myself to get any closer knowing that I’m about to go in for this valve, then, too.  I should tell him. 

Thankfully for the sanity bit, someone has dropped the ball and left _H. Weekly_ begging for three illustrations ‘by yesterday, pls’ last-minute as per their usual ways.  Subject?  “Safe texting.”  Ha!

17:45     My clock is telling a terrible lie and I really need to get back to the worktable.  I can’t focus.  How would one illustrate a woman who has received an unwanted text?  I don’t even relate at the moment. 

21:15     Texting goodnight back and forth seems so ridiculous.  Particularly to two different people (one was S, though, that’s all right).   There are worse things to text, I suppose.  Like...are we doing this?  Yes, we are.  Like:  1) Reading “I’m thinking of you right now” when that someone has just informed you the day before that he has someone else and has been ‘unfair about it’ to me and himself, both.  Looking at you, D.  2) Not finishing this list.  Stay in the moment.  I remember life without texting, fondly.  Sometimes I think I’d like to go back to hand-writing letters and notes but I’d need a receiver (consider: the receptive receiver) and there is the hand-cramping issue, though if I carry on in this book I will have my hand well-seasoned, for writing letters to nobody.  OMG. When and how did this happen?  Let us count the ways.  Another list.

I miss David so much.  But I was just thinking that his paintings are a liability.  I can’t bear to part with them, not yet.  Speaking of such things, S is still sketching in the morgue where he does some experiments and so forth.  I have seriously mixed feelings.  He started it, he said, to sketch for the drawing of the soldiers and for anatomical studies.  Yet.  Yet.  He always liked to shock, with the remains (two hearts and a set of four fingers, perhaps not from the same man, so not funny) but now he has taken to drawing bolder studies of the departed (victims of accidents and crimes) and if he has the same regard for bodies in death, I need to tell him that I can’t look at them.  He could get in serious trouble.  I wonder if J knows?  I’ll not be the one to tell him, I guess he does know, if S shows him any sketches, and he can see they’re not of his own legs, or arms, etcetera.  J is a brilliant model for the taking, fairly static, sleeps on his back often.  He’s gorgeous, there.  Yes, yes, it’s possible to brag through a sketch and I was envious, S. J has a beautiful, small arse, as well.  Not to mention that he is a kind, brave soul and his personal attributes are not at the forefront -- ahem -- I believe I merely...need a lay and I cannot bring myself to reread any of the above which will doubtlessly support that through and through.  Mercy.


	5. All about ombre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1:73

_21\. Nov._

Four texts from Jens today.  There'd have been three but I answered ambiguously.  My sense of humour is off (switched off, it would seem).  Another neckwear-related venture into the centre yesterday while coming home from an appointment with Dr. AW.  "Leo" of John Lewis, Oxford Street, in response to my enquiry regarding grey scarves:  "Fair Isle, colour block or ombre?"  Me, possibly playing at something:  “Any of those, when they are solids.”  Leo:  “Solids?  No, no.  This winter is all about ombre.  And it suits you."  He gestured at the hair by my ears, reminding me how someone asked recently where I’d got my temples frosted.  (My repertoire of ripostes turned to ash and I gaped until it seemed to dawn on the other one:  "Aha.  Senile."  This being-40 thing is NOT going well.)  So actually this time I started to laugh & Leo stood aside & waited for it to stop.  It was so inappropriate but I know S would have been gasping, too.  Lord, I think I’ll have to take him along.  

How does one choose, the act of choosing. Is it meant to last longer than 6 weeks?  Should it be provisional or indulgent?  Neither?  I might dig further into my things but I'm fairly certain I left all my scarves with Oxfam, in August.  An impulse, like others, while not like others.  Shall we get through this, Lexie?  

 

_22\. Nov._

Awful day, or at least in part. In the meantime, the safe-texting illustrations have been edited and are going to press tomorrow.  One of these days I should update my portfolio.  Or better yet, make several out of what I’ve got in new groupings, the magazine illustrations separate? I cannot even think at the moment.

J gave S something big but he’s not telling what.  Jens is feeling much better.  Another flurry of texts because I wrote after a horrid late lunch.

18:30     Now that I’ve had some supper, I can sit down and relate the rest.  Behold my skills at committing mistakes & what an absurd enterprise I’ve made of a day away from the drawing board!  A waste of energy. I went to the Pipe Stripe to try to relax.  I'd heard of it through Anne at the Weekly -- I neither ‘adored’ their decaf coffee nor the intrusive thoughts of how easy it would be (were I not myself) to walk out & get (myself/someone else) off, even now.  I pretend for my own something or other that these places aren’t full of potential, or more accurately, distraction. 

"Hey.  Not seen you here before.  Niles."  "Niles, good afternoon."  "Sure. What's your name, though?"  "A -- dalbert."  (Oh, Lord.) "Right.  Yeah, what are you, though." "A draughtsman." "No, I mean, I'm a top." "There's certainly more to you than that," I said. A direct quote from the snark-archives (snarkive?) of S.  Niles stared at me, "I don't bottom." "Well where's the fun there?" I said & took some decaf into my mouth and held it so I wouldn't scream or say anything else.  "Are you being funny --?" "I switch, thank you." He left quite confused, to the curiosity of plenty around us. To me things could hardly have been less confusing, it was awful, there's nothing 'hot' in that as an introduction. Not anymore. Gracious Peter, it's hard to write this. I ought to have left sooner than I did, that's the thing. This is what being alone does and should not do. 

I'm literally missing the introductions-by-respectable-connections bit that David and I used to take the piss out of like "spoiled sons" do.  I swear I could hear Grandma V today, and she was just as mortified by the 'top-down' eliminations (3 of them):  “One cannot simply skip over Precedence when looking for agreeable companions, but don’t you worry, a proper endorsement will never follow flirtation, stand aside and let them make cheap fools of themselves, you don’t want any part of that!”  Well, yes.  No.  Dear splayed volume, I cannot write this.  Sorry to be a tease.  No kisses for 7 fucking months.  As for the rest, no lists tonight, Lord knows I'm rubbish with larger numbers. 

I want it but cannot go off & get it that way, as hard as that is to believe of me, given what I am writing here, book (sluttish thoughts & their epic misalliance with a certain porcine valve).  Heart & mind, Lexie Bertie, remain indivisible & you remain a solitary & greying stick.  

S claims I am a 'relic'. Perhaps I am but to me today was all about emptiness & the lack of time that chases us at different speeds. Built into hook-ups, which are bursts of humanity, greed, need.  One long kiss would be a brilliant start, just not that sort ("you would do", as per the scene with Andreas).  To hold someone.

One good man would be a brilliant finish to this life.  Evening over, why do I write these things.  What testament of myself am I leaving.

But I hate to imagine, and it hurts more and more when I am out now: how many of the people I pass have things to give, too, and are they also longing for a chance to give them. How we cannot know it, unless we state it, at the right moment, somehow.  Does this make any sense at all?  

 

_24\. Nov._

Knackered but I have to write some of this down.  Met S for coffee.  Mercy, J gave S such a beautiful gold ring, just so exquisite, I can't even.  More on that shortly.  S gave me a once/twice over (he pulled me out of an uncreative funk for coffee, there was actually a killing quite close by here, so horrifying!  I don’t know any details, it was a beating, perhaps it will be in the papers?) and was deducing (correctly!!! as always) about who sewed my jacket in Linz and teasing me over my eyeglasses for a bit of sport.  Yes, yes, I want to look pretty at work, ha.  Never mind that my others were literally falling apart anew on a weekly basis.  He gave me my watch back today, all fixed, apparently over-wound?  He looked at me like I’d done something quite naughty.  Ahem.  He claims Jens called me “my star” lately but gave no details.  Evil man.  I’ll believe it when I hear it.  Okay, I believe it. 

So the ring.  I should mention it suits his fingers perfectly, and looks like a natural object, somehow.  When I saw it, it occurred to me how 'off' a typical band would look on him.  It’s rather hard to describe but it’s heavy, very.  Solid as J himself, for the longest imaginable haul.  Very wide but with a soft and rounded form, meaning the edges are uneven while smooth, and it can be moved about so it doesn’t interfere with writing (on right hand).  It looks very old, not scratched or matte but still gleaming instead of shining, so lovely.  Shaped in clay or wax and cast in gold, then tumbled with stones?  Perhaps that’s the technique that was used?  Not sure.  Metal clay, possibly?  Or cast from an antique bronze piece, like an archaeological treasure from the Viking era?  That would leave pitting, though, I suppose, and this was also made to size.  It’s from Sweden, so very possibly Viking-inspired and S mentioned that one of Jens’ former colleagues from Stockholm made it, a lady goldsmith and expert in art history.  If that’s not incredible as coincidences go, I don’t even know what is.  What a nice surprise for him, though.  It’s so stunning and special, perfectly one of a kind and he’s really happy, trying to be so cool about it as per usual, but very proud all the same.  Who wouldn’t be!  This all happened a few days ago.  He claims it isn’t an engagement ring (?) but still doesn’t want to explain what the other ring was about (“this is one is from J, that wasn’t”) from the press photographs.  OMG I am so tired.  More later.

It’s later.  More.  He’s already set to work on one for J, and it’s completely different.  He has a gold ring body from somewhere in Soho where there is a goldsmith with older designs, possible it is also an antique cast, and this one is sort of a Victorian or perhaps Edwardian look, with a wide band that meets on either side of a shield-shaped spot for a stone.  A smallish signet, not the sort that pops out on the hand and catches on things, scaled to J’s hand, which I wouldn’t call small, though smaller than ours, say.  He has rather manly, powerful hands, don’t get me started.  Anyhow, he asked about an engraver!  Not just any, viz. Sir Simko-Vágner himself.  OMG I rang him and we went straight over to visit him.  I hadn’t seen him since I was a teenager, perhaps.  What an incredible, brilliant person he is.  I didn’t stay to see what they decided on but S ordered oak leaves.  I’ve no doubt they’ll be beautiful.  I must go back and see him again while I still can.  He remembers my grandparents well and it would be lovely to talk.  Must go to bed, I’d swear I’m greying more by the day.  “I’m all about ombre.”  And one for precedence, apparently. 


	6. Knitting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1:74

_26\. Nov._

Discouraged about the silence re. further contract work at the firm.  Not that I can work much or that I need a contract, where someone else might, but one needs tasks, there’s no point wallowing about.  I don’t care whether cultural norms or lack of interest are behind Jens' communications/lack thereof, about the work itself. The reality is I am not even looking forward to the next meeting.  Our texts are ambiguous and leave this low-burning anxiety. Cannot start anything now, but it would be lovely. His arms. His texts say he'd try. I would if I knew where things would go. There are unreasonable thoughts that cannot be shaken off with a cup of herbal tea or a walk.  The walks are even too bracing, the worst imaginable time to catch cold. November and January are always the worst.  Yes.  Agree with self.  I slept fifteen hours and this is what I get for it.  A seratonin washback-cocktail in the brain.

18:45    Tired.  Thoughts of B.  Would I even be able to trust?  In the abstract, I feel like I cannot trust anyone casually, particularly those who say they can’t trust, either, as a sort of empathic thing.  What sort of kinship would that be!  “We won’t make each other trust” or “I may never trust you, but I can X you’ and / or...!  I was working in charcoal today.  I’ll never care for it.  Too much dust-to-dust in carbon for today, and the mess.

In fact the Pipe Stripe experience has led me to reappraise some things.

 

_27\. Nov._

So horrified about what they’ve done.  Such a blatant lie and name-smearing!  Of all the nerve of bored, pathetic mongerers of filth, libel and misinformation!  The Daily Fail has a photo of S and me taken through a window, exactly when I handed his gold ring back to him, so now I am the great detective's “posh mystery companion”. As though I was proposing, or Lord even knows what, I can’t believe it.  Bloody hell.  Not sorry, even if it is unbecoming. Fuck!  I’ve been swearing for the better part of the morning, in fact, and I can’t get anything done at all.  S laughed when I called and said, “Ehhh, yup. My brother let that one through." "Your brother works for the Daily Mail?" I asked, but he ignored me. "And note they didn’t bother to add their congratulations. Manners, manners.  What! Are you afraid Jens will see?  Do you really think he’d be taken in?  Reputation?  Nobody has reputations anymore, do they?” But really, S!  (He doesn’t know what J will say, either, and I told him to come out with it straight away, his officer is a jealous one, I don’t want there to be any bad feelings over such rubbish.)  J has seen plenty of ‘rot’ in the press, S says, about them together and with various other people.  But that doesn’t make it any easier to accept, and it was J’s ring, given to him, after all.  Right. Maybe I am overdoing this, but OMG I look so starry-eyed there, stupidly ambiguous, I can’t.  “Posh mystery companion” S says is *flattering* and I should stop it.  Poshly.  He was at the morgue again.  To cool off, perhaps?  He was working on shoulders, fragments near the neck, more or less, nice, but.  J does know because he gave S a new book for it.

15:35   New books, new books.  New habit.  I like this, writing. The truth is, I did have a journal one summer when I was a teenager (15!) & then David found it and added some remarks in the margins (“Ooooh, every Bible needs a right concordance, and did you seriously confess to getting an hard-on during Mass, Bertie-Bertie?”) I could have killed him on the spot but instead went and threw the thing into the fireplace and lit it (in July -- clever, so everyone got to see I had a flaming journal of shame because the flue was closed and 5 people in the garden thought the living room had gone up) and David yelled again because I craftily blamed him for driving me over the edge to begin with, ha.  ("David, don’t ever upset Lexie!")  Mercy, if S ever finds out about or deduces 'Lexie' I will turn to stone.  Or, I'll be able to tell if he's snatched this and read it (he absolutely would).  I shouldn't have added that:  I just lost my potential edge on him.  Not that anyone could have one.  Well, he does have an older brother, too, there's always family to keep the ego in check.  Ech.

 

_28\. Nov._

Appointment with Dr. MJ.  Two texts from Jens, one regarding a signature on a print, the other vaguely about a coffee, sweet.  S cranky about a case at the New Scotland Yard he wanted.  Nobody seems to listen to him, he says.  I don’t know what is happening there, so I won’t comment, now. 

He said to talk to Andy at Harrods about scarves, that he "isn’t an idiot", and to lie that I'm allergic to scents before he atomises me with something resembling a sportier sink cleaning liquid.  Whatever I should understand from that.  But I don’t want to go all the way to Brompton Road to talk to ‘Andy’ where no true neck-warming is to be had, but.  No.  Now Auntie C made such gorgeous scarves with snowflakes (Fair Isle!) and for the life of me I cannot remember what purling into a stitch was or casting it off, and so forth, if not throwing it across the room, but I am just about to turn to knitting myself a tangle of something.  My neck is cold & I need someone lovely to put his warm lips on my throat.  So I can go for a longer walk, that is.  


	7. Q and A Nr 1

_[A.G.A.N. refers herein to Aron’s “Generation of Interpersonal Closeness” & 36 questions toward building rapid rapport / falling in love with a stranger]_

 

_29\. Nov._

Same tiredness today, not related to length of sleep.  Waking myself up all the way takes ages, it's noticeable.  Reading columns in the online press and letting them sink in a bit too deep.  A pointless morning, generally.  I should say, I am reading these things pointlessly as if to remind myself of the intolerance of popular psychology & my perhaps most apt decision to date:  leaving that psychology degree unfinished, costly as it was.  Nobody (neither party concerned) really agreed that leaving for Berlin made perfect sense, and I fell into a brilliant technical drawing course, after running off to Die Universität der Künste.  And then those Friday evenings in Krystian's office, a brilliant internship with his hands, a fetish location to architects with a view of the Reichstag to die for.  Studies we did together, techniques of oblique projection, the only casual arrangement I've had that worked.  Lexie, stop.  His stamina was remarkable, that he managed to drive me (and 2 other blokes, as it turned out) so wild.

There are, I've learnt, 36 questions that lead to intimacy, or at the least build "rapport".  I have exactly that many days before going in for the OHS.  The task involves a 45 minute exchange of information. Task?

Why was this article even clicked on?  For the record:  a wrongly-routed link to photos of a passive solar-heated, transformed industrial loft in Trondheim.  Which I still cannot find online except in Norwegian and Swedish so I might need help with the latter.  That much we already know, book.  Delayed project meeting tomorrow BTW should prepare for questions and remarks re. fittings and a third visualisation.  Questions about grounding cables + Kensington?  Substantive info re. contracting terms in the coming year. Should mention the nagging issue of open heart surgery, forthcoming, namely the fact that I will not work reliably until Valentine’s day.  At the least.  The 15th of February is a goal of sorts, when I return to better occupations than floundering. One should have a plan.

(Reminder to start moving things to more accessible places in the flat and take softer clothing out from behind heavy wardrobe doors, food on counter tops, toiletries out of cabinets, crop hair short, arrange matters once more with Abram regarding testament, organs, corneas, properties, securities and the lot.  The lot is starting to interfere with a bloke’s digestion, I've got no spouse to speak for me in the graver matters.  Give flat key to S.  Letters.  OMG how to explain things without explaining things!) The fear is there & I wish it were not so.

12:12     If people are still able to fall in love after going through all of these & gazing into one another’s eyes for a mere 4 minutes, it might at least be calming to work through what one might ever say.  (What happens if someone goes through those 36 questions with multiple interlocutors?  Hypothetical answers.  Perhaps some not-hypothetical insights?)  I cannot believe I am undertaking this, beautiful volume, though one does various things to avoid thoughts of median sternotomy.  It is the wires, in fact, which scare me, twisted shut to a point of nearly snapping, from metal fatigue. We have various fears, do we not, and when one concerns likely and less-likely outcomes of deep breaths, even the most inane questions become attractive points of light.

_1\. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?_

My first impulse is “Mum”.  But this sort of question is a catch-22.  The very people I would want to have dinner with are those I could not accept hosting, as a one-off, if that makes any sense.  Mum being the very best example.  Alternate questions which I imagine would be more revealing:  “Given the choice of any dinner guest in the world, is it possible that someone might choose YOU as that guest?  What sort of person might do so?"  Or:  "What might prevent someone from choosing you?  Why do you feel you must be X/Y to be chosen?”  That would be an attractive line of thought.  To nobody.  Quite the filter, though, and might eliminate the need for the other 35 questions.  (“Elegant!” -- I can hear S's voice, there.  He understands.)

_2\. Would you like to be famous? In what way?_

Fame in itself does not hold any appeal though if it came to me I should hope it would be for my artwork, even posthumously for whatever reason, and not Twitter et alia for handing my friend a gold ring in a cafe, &c.  I write etcetera too often.  I might start finishing my thoughts...(writes ellipses)

_3\. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?_

In German, to make the calls short, with someone I don’t know.  I don’t agnonise over words for a regular call, and if I am doing so, I should probably reconsider my intent and do it in writing or in person.  In fact I make very few calls because I like to see the eyes of the person I speak to.  Call me old-fashioned but if I show mine, they can show theirs, I say.  Perhaps another?

_4\. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?_

My wedding day.  There, I've written it.  God help me. 

15:55     Nap not happening, hello.  In fact there is no perfect day because each day is a gift and a chance.  And there is no point in comparing too much or imagining that THIS is/was/shall be THE one.

_5\. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?_

This morning while cooking up brunch.  A perma-bachelor's habit but it relieves stress.  We might also count the carol I unwittingly performed in Selfridges recently, for Colin the Younger.  I now qualify for the next question.

_6\. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?_

This assumes that the states of a 30-year-old and 90-year-old mind/body are generalisable.  Dangerous as getting-to-know topics go.  Case in point:  Sir Simko-Vágner’s heart at 90 & mine when I got this porcine valve -- or his memory & that of even an above-average younger person.  Therefore we are not asking anyone this. 

_7\. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?_

Let it be said that many hunches I have seen would be hard to keep secret.  Expectations about my lifespan may vary.

19:25     If struck in the future on Warfarin, perhaps I will bleed internally to death or if cut or stabbed, make a more public display of things.  Then again, nobody makes note of secret hunches about death as though they might be interesting to others, do they? 

Many of these questions could be hurtful, indeed.  Or is that the point?  (“Let’s be honest and get it all out!  If you can’t take it, I didn’t need your issues anyhow.  Or, let’s grow.”)  Sounds like a monstrous American romantic comedy.   Lord have mercy.  At least I am working on a new drawing.  I’m running low on some of my watercolours, though.  

_8\. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common._

N/A .  Well, there are some things.  1) We are both middle-aged, blond and greying.  2) We both have blue eyes and know where to look when the call comes.  3) We both -- well, no, I don’t have a license to kill.  That was going somewhere, too.  Tired.


	8. In details

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1:78

_30\. Nov._

Apparently J wasn’t offended by the Daily Mail photo w/ the ring.  S says he seemed pleased, for whatever reason that would be.  It might not be a bad idea to go through my things now if 35 days and also give J those drawings of S I think I said I would in Vienna? 

Are we doing this? 

_9\. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?_

That I am alive at this age in these times and not fifty years ago, for instance. 

_10\. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?_

I wish my parents had been given more time.  I cannot complain about the privileged education I was given, mostly at home though year-round, whether/not I appreciated it suitably then.  I wish, if anything, that they’d let me go to regular schools longer and sheltered me less.  But this question is one that leads a person to criticise things that can neither be understood fully nor changed, and those decisions probably made sense at the time, and my dear Uncle Henry wanted me to avoid trouble in school, though nobody bothered with me much -- they hardly knew who I was, when I was there.  One could never ask for more love from anyone than what I got, so what does it matter, really.  We lost Mum very suddenly and Auntie Claudia stepped up despite her advanced age & lack of experience with children, and she and Henry kept us here, in this flat (David for two seasons until he left to study).  That must have taken so much love and courage, how could I want to change it? 

_11\. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible._

N/A

16:20     Just back from a project meeting, in bed.  I mean I am in bed, after.  I mean I am in bed, having just returned from a project meeting.  After which Jens asked me to his office, closed the door, and said (accent!), “You were very thoughtful.  You may tell me here what you thought of the Kensington revitalisation, nobody is listening.” He thought I was shy, apparently.  Nice of him to take me aside and give me a chance to look at him up close.  He is kind, polite, cultured, hung.  I was distracted (trouser drape, and so forth). In a word, it was good of him to describe my naughtier self as "thoughtful".  There is plenty of room for surprises, then. 

I don't know how to express this otherwise:  when you spend time with S, you start to assume everyone understands all the nuances around them, and when they start taking the wrong things for granted you have twice as many decisions to make about what things might or might not mean. 

 

_01\. Dec._

Advent!  It’s enough to hear that word and I want a Terry’s orange in hand, preferably the dark one, though I can't have those anymore.  I miss David today and fighting over who knocks the orange apart on whose skull, which Auntie said was as much a harbinger of the Yuletide as the carols.  When I smell the myrrh in church I think of his funeral and it cuts every time so terribly and today it was worse.  An elderly lady behind me leaned forward and said in my ear, “there are many very nice girls in London, dearie, you’ll find another in no time, don’t you worry, you’re a fine-looking young man.”  I thanked her and returned to the breakdown I was in the middle of heading into.  I can’t stop it much of the time and I try to remind myself of what happens when one holds negative emotions inside.  I might speak to a therapist beforehand but there would be so many questions.  To orient oneself, unpack the self.  There no time for going through it all, again; it sounds exhausting.  Then again, one is supposed to have rapport after 45 minutes using those 36 questions.  I must be old-school.  I would want about four days, with longer physical responses interspersed there somewhere for good measure.  C would have, too.  The Season brings him to mind without fail as well, and perhaps the feelings in church were more about that.  

Overwhelmed.  Why do I.

_12\. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?_

A superior visual memory, and the ability to access it even years later in great detail.  Like S, perhaps.

_13\. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?_

Out of fear, or ?  We should not consult the ‘truth’ on Earth about such things. 

_14\. Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?_

The safe answer is "visit Tokyo" which involves a long flight I'd rather not take, right now. The truth: I dream of finding my C. Writing him a gorgeous letter, receiving a reply that it had been long-awaited.  Meeting in person & having a look at him again. His green irises. (Have you seen truly clear, green eyes, with perfect chestnut brown rims?) Feeling one more very long night, smelling all those places on his body. Those I cannot forget about, even in my sleep.  Especially in my sleep, it's always there.  How do you ask for that?  How to get through all the blocks one throws in front of ones’ self, ask the universe to bring him closer?  I've dreams of running into him -- abroad, for instance.  He’s somewhere in Thailand, or was recently (will not check) going by the last photo spread I saw of his, and there is really no chance at any of this when I hardly leave home now, without losing my breath.  But I do catch myself watching crowds, to see if anyone approaching is actually him, that he has found me, easily, because he wanted to.  That he came to find me, is pleased to have managed it. The rest. 

We will stop this.  

 

_02\. Dec._

Consultation with Dr. MB with S.  So exhausted but a lot to say.  S is surely tired of seeing me break down in public by now but he’s stopped grumbling.  Book, you might do the same, it is becoming the norm with me.  Dr. referred to the need for a pacemaker in the future, depending on four factors (two of which cannot be assessed pre-op).  When we were in the toilet just after, and I was trying to piss and cry without further incident, S zipped and asked all of a sudden, “Wait!  Say that again.”  “Let a bloke, would you,” I said.  “You said...you said you wouldn’t want a pacemaker, because it carries on after brain death -- brilliant!”  Another gentleman came in and S was taking out his phone, cackling “Yaaaaaassss, beating after brain death!”  I went over to the sink and S started pacing like a cat along behind me.  “Lestrade!  Kippner Way, the one -- the time of death, on the front step!  A pacemaker!  Ahhhhhha!  I knew there was too much blood in the gutter!  Obviously!”  (The other man so was horrified!  I’d swear he almost rushed out midstream.) 

We met J at a cafe and as soon as he got there he ran into an old girlfriend, rather awkward.  When he explained things re. S I think she got a bit hostile but what was more worrying is how pasty he was.  He looked awful, actually, and didn’t stay too long, confirmed an appointment S has later on and accepted the drawings of S I had along.  I apologised for the DM photograph though indeed he seemed not to care much about it.  He went back to work and S and I went to his flat, apparently to put a patina on J’s ring.  I’d no idea one could oxidise gold like that, nor do I know why S needs a large jug of that sort of oxide sitting about, but so it is.  He plays the violin so beautifully though with terrible posture and wasteful fingering that must tire him quickly.  I imagine he was enough of a terror to his teachers that they didn’t manage to correct any of that in time, or carried on without them, most likely.  Auntie Claudia would have kept him playing for hours.  He goes by ear however you like, you merely choose the pitch and he adjusts instantly, lovely.  We went through some of the low moments of “Pirates of Penzance” and he does indeed know it thoroughly, as do I, all too sadly.  Horrid! 

Now, J’s ring.  The engraving is perfection itself, all those little acorns and leaves are darling and absolutely in the style of the ring, which is Edwardian.  On the inner edges it is engraved with a sentimental text, personal, so I won’t repeat it here, but the extraordinary thing was the ornateness of the hidden letters among the leaves, which was far more complicated than on the outside.  That is the key, to that gift.  So beautiful.  S was concerned that it had been done in German but it must be a sort of historical reference or Sir Simko-Vágner would not have done it that way.  I adore the hidden text, though.  I’d like to try my hand at that someday -- putting the text of a note, for someone special, in a picture, and see if he can find me out?  For someone who could actually find it, it would be worth all the work.  For now, my hand is safe. Sort of. Anyhow, it is a striking piece but not something I'd wear.  I didn’t say so because S is nervous, as it is.  I don't know J's tastes but I can easily imagine that on his hand, even if he is conservative (not to say practical).  That said, I’m curious what sort of stone S will choose for it?  He was considering an engraved one and I told him that anything beyond bevelling would be too much on one piece, perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything? 


	9. Likely coincidence

_04\. Dec._

S texted:  "Stubborn. Andy, Harrods. SH" and I wrote "I don’t feel up for it."  I might as well have waved a red scarf his way.  "Leave your flat.  Annoying. SH".  "Maybe I've not finished pining!"  "Don’t be an idiot. SH"

So I told S about C. A mistake, perhaps, but I asked him what sorts of missing people he'd found and it went on from there.  Deduction:  “Reason for asking? Transparent. Pining, obviously. An unresolved affair, some great love or another of yours, blah blah, lost forever, blah, boring." I believe that's how he said it, and I told him off for being disrespectful.  So he asked where ‘that particular great love’ is currently located & I reiterated that I needn't know, that perhaps we will run into one another one day, but abroad.  “Google," he said, “that’s what it’s for.”  He wanted to drive home his idea that the likelihood of a coincidental meeting like I think of is negligible statistically, irrational and pointless.  He told me a nightmare he has about missing a meeting.  So sad.  I can’t remember all of it now, but I felt so heavy afterward.  He pointed out that one of us (me or C) would have to throw himself in the way of the other.  “And he won’t make that effort”, S explained, “when it's been -- what, nine years?”  I broke down and explained how C lives, among people he photographs around the world, that I am probably ballast in that equation & S sort of laughed to himself.  "Yessss," he agreed. I told him: C set a pinnacle for me, didn’t anyone do that for him?  Anyone not-John, when when he was coming out?  He countered, loudly: “Coming out!!!  You said yourself, it’s not a choice, yet there’s a starting date. 'Today, here, aha'.”  Instant nerves and frustration, I don't know why. “To realising certain things, of course there is, like with many discoveries in life,” I said.  “So. Shall I find this object of your undying love or will you?  Just google, get it over with, a colossal waste of time." "And I am, by extension, because I asked!" I shouted. He rolled his eyes. "Alex, access any remaining stores of reason? He won’t quit travelling to hold your hand in the park or join you in the salons of London, not exactly his milieu, never was. And seeing you don’t even want to save your life, what sort of lover would you be to him, now? Appointments!”  I couldn’t even answer. That was harsh going and I was so furious at his approach -- who has used that sort of method on him, I wonder? I'd had more than enough, and he saw it and backed off.  Even so, I asked him to leave, so we didn’t sketch anything of worth.  I've thought about his comments a lot, though.  I've hardly told anyone about C -- there was no context, and it was too painful to go into with someone I was seeing casually, and everyone has been just that. Sophie knows the general outline & David knew him, a bit. They met, twice, and when my brother saw what state I was in he tried to listen, made an effort, actually. He got a colleague to talk to me though I don't recall getting far into that before I had a lot of chest pain and needed some new meds. It's been years, I think I should leave it there. When I’m feeling better than I am this afternoon, I'll write out a description of it all as objectively as possible and see if S might have a point, or rather, I know he has a point.  But he was so dear to me, book.

_05\. Dec._

_15\. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?_

One thing that stands out in my mind is the day I decided, at age 5, during holiday at Auntie Bea’s lovely little place in Cirencester with David, that I’d had enough of him & that I’d visit Mum in London.  So I set off for the village on my own with a paper sack of dried apple slices and 50p, to look for the train station.  Only to be thwarted by a well-meaning but massive, shiny-bald butcher with a poorly-healed, once-crushed nose David compared to a meat hook -- a friend of my Auntie's who, after thinking things through, decided it was odd I’d be passing by on my own and chased after me, in his bloodstained apron.  He had a long cleaver shoved in his front pocket and I thought he wanted to cach me, chop me to bits and sell me.  So I started to run like mad, shouting “Please don’t eat me!  I’m only skin and bones, they all say so!  Police!” which made me light-headed, and by the time a lady escorted me home to Auntie’s the entire town seemed to be leaning out their windows, cheering me on, so I nodded and waved to them like I’d seen Prince Charles do on telly -- one couldn’t go wrong there.  And they’d rung my Mum, and she promised to come visit me.  Ultimately she stayed on two days.  I’d got what I wanted, in essence.  And hadn't got eaten, either.

My art might be of some interest in a dialogue meant to built rapport by sharing accomplishments, ha. I could start by saying I've known I was an artist since I could walk & nothing ever fascinated me as much as watching the emergence of my ideas, by my own hand. Book, you needn't be reminded. That's more or less what everyone else noticed, too:  "Lexie's our in-home artist, you see, look at these walls, he found Carole's good pencils, again.  Lexie has an artist's eye, an artistic flair (for this or that), is artful, there is an art to that, artfully done...."  I was considered "gifted" in drawing, not unlike my brother, whose abilities I exceeded only though diligent practise, at about age 15. He was furious so I needed to hide my better work for a while in little moleskines. 

Dinner tastes better on blue plates, I've always thought so. So. Earlier on this afternoon, I was writing about drawings.  I have dry spells followed by fecund spurts.  Of artistic activity, if I must clarify. (Dick-jokes worthy of our dear S, who excels at them.  Lexie, you are scaring even your imaginary interlocutor, meaning yourself.) Other achievements:  the occasional local award through the schools -- for a charity card, later for a Christmas poster as a teenager.  Eustace gave me a set of classical anatomy books and two others on perspective and chiaroscuro, which I tried to copy from.  Mostly I scribbled and then later developed the loopy, swirly technique that some might associate with engravings -- rightfully so.  

I have published fifty-two little illustrations, to date.  The first work I ever submitted to a periodical (Lady Beth's, a now-defunct favourite monthly of Auntie's), was a series of 4 mad 18th-century-style shoes with heels like prison towers.  They bought the rights to them & added them to the margins in a text about body image, thus at 20 my first drawings appeared in print.  I designed my signatures & started to look for side jobs in illustration, a step above cartooning, for my own satisfaction.  Later there was the public display of others' and my diploma work in Berlin, an experience with exposure to strangers (including tourists).  On the opening day, I stood off with K and watched others interact with it for all of an hour until I had to leave for the toilet.  Ech.  There were plenty of other sketches and notebook nobody saw or shall see.  I destroyed the majority of my personal drawings in one day.  A mistake & improper form of farewell.  I regret it like little else.  I made the Daumenkino S likes so much just afterward. 

"Draughtsman" allows one to separate skill from subjective, personal work (and indeed that training was an escape of sorts, an attempt at normalising one's vision, a channel). Why? Because while my drawing skills may be my strongest selling point in others' eyes, they fail me in subtle ways.  They magnify and explicate my most volatile feelings.  People have so many beautiful moments in their expressions, and they move me greatly.  Their faces change hundreds of times in the mean as I try to catch them, it's like chasing their hearts, carving them into the paper, stroke by stroke.  I adore that, I don't even know why, or why I should care to know. Record-keeping of feelings (theirs, and mine) is a crucial part of it.  Wanting to. Ironically, I hardly tried to draw my C.  There was never time, for one & I couldn't finish before I'd want him, or he'd get embarrassed and interrupt.  By contrast, C shot pictures of me almost every day, wanting to capture things he said he loved, about my open expressions, he said.  He caught me falling in love.  Because I was. In bed, in the clutches of post-orgasmic laughter, which he found the most attractive, Lord knows why, he liked to stand over me and shoot down.  "Hold still, your mouth is blurred."  "Come back, darling."  "God, yeah.  Look at you."  "I can't very well.  Come down here."  (Click, mirror slap clang, wind, click, slap, clang.)  Hell. Hell!

Truth on paper, all over again.  Shall we also mention the anxiety of drawing and not-drawing, which is much like not-writing?  The urge to draw is very much like the urge to eat, in me -- suppressible, can be tricked, but only to a point.  Of late the writing has pushed it aside, as I mentioned earlier. 

_16\. What do you value most in a friendship?_

Loyalty, discretion, honour, the ability to share important things without thinking about it too much, because the second thoughts are where we go wrong in the sharing bit.  

_17\. What is your most treasured memory?_

I don’t know that I would care to choose only one.  Christmas in the countryside with Great Auntie Sylvia and the sleigh ride we had with real torches burning at the corners.  Singing at the fireside in winter.  The adrenaline of the recitation contests.  The balls which I never fully appreciated the beauty of, in time.  The night C. explained his intentions.  My first illustrations in print.

_18\. What is your most terrible memory?_

ID at morgue.  When they tried to show me the tattoo over his heart the sheet slipped and I nearly vomited on my own brother but managed with the floor beneath him instead.  “Terribly sorry, only select marks and features are ever shown, an unfortunate error, that should not have -- etc.”  The trouble they made over it afterward, the apologies each like a stiletto to the gut, verbal, in writing, one after the other when I told them to let it go.  The solicitor who urged me to sue the technician.  Because of gravity and the fact his hand had trembled I should have ruined his newly-undertaken career?  He was crying like a child.  Horrified at his mistake, and in fact, his reaction drove home the reality more than the act of reading David's favourite 'Mortui vivos docent' ['the dead teach the living'] on his chest a few times, in those strange seconds, when his skin looked so otherworldly, pallid, but also wrecked and so horridly dark and bruised in patches, like stone with inclusions, not human veins that have broken inside at all.  The neck.  The angle.  

Ironically, I was diagnosed with traumatic stress disorder once by a hospital counsellor who visited in place of a chaplain who'd called in sick, an off-handed suggestion that I "might have it", not over the events of that night (which I didn't even mention) but due to losses, the OHS and so forth in succession, which Karen said means that in some cases and when confronted with events my “perceptions and memories may be disconnected or incomplete”, and to be very aware of that when assessing myself and what I think of my own behaviours.  To "go easy" on myself.  I do not know how one goes easy on one's self.  And how much can a man keep his eyes on himself, turned within?  Would I regain a sense of the 'value' assigned to X or Y incident if I continued to look within?  Besides, I would never compare my experiences to those of a soldier, for instance.   Personally I do not know how J lives with memories of war and injury.  I am certainly cut of inferior cloth in that regard.  I wonder how much of his reserve and moodiness are reactions to aggravations from post-army city life (lack of order and procedure plus the inane city routines that replace those, it is said, are especially hard) and how much is the everyday stress of being a busy medical doctor?  One should not underestimate the effects of concussion, and after having seen him I wonder that he is working if he’s feeling so poorly, though if there are issues I’ve no doubt S will catch them immediately and reason with him about it. 

S is perceptive about symptoms and there are times I even wish he weren’t so.  He was ready to start a very public row over the mechanical valve recommendation when I left and said I wanted another porcine and to continue with beta-blockers, which they do not recommend at this stage.  (Avoiding “etcetera”.)  For reasons known only to him he is quite determined to commandeer me through this process and I appear to be letting him do so.  Quite the arrangement. 


	10. Occam's Razor in bespoke merinos

_06\. Dec._

_19\. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?_

Not much.  Perhaps I would give myself more time to Get Things Organised With My Solicitor.  Should not be putting that off.  

The weather is dreadful, making a walk riskier than it should be & I've spent far too long in the kitchen & so am roosted here at the table, with a place-setting ready to receive a stew.  I do all of this to avoid "declining into swinedom", as one might all too easily.  "Always set the table to dine, even when alone, respect mealtimes by upholding simple acts of decorum, you might have an unexpected guest!  Or suffer a heart attack.  Choke!  What impression would you leave behind!  Never eat piggishly over your knees, Lord forbid in front of the telly, or at a desk, Lexie!" -- Grandmother V.  Were I to have someone to dine with every day I would want it to be this way.  Or in front of a fire would do, on the floor, as on a certain Greek urn favoured (also) by bf (must remind S to give that back already).  

There is a bright side to the sudden-tho-foretold option as stated:  it would allow one not to leave things untended to.  The true answer to question 19 is that I cook things in larger amounts in order to avoid having to do it every day & as a reminder that I shall not waste food by leaving it behind in shameful circumstances.  One copes and looks forward as he can, even if at empty chairs.

_20\. What does friendship mean to you?_

Loyalty, honesty, respect, & time, like in 16 above.

_21\. What roles do love and affection play in your life?_

Affection without love seems impossible, to me.  Or perhaps love may be independent of ‘affection’ (imprecise) expressed physically or verbally.  Each person has a way of finding that level of expression for themselves.  Trust is a big part of that process, of course, which I believe is the reason so many people betray each other or stop trying. They lose patience with someone who isn’t able to express affection the way they expect, forgetting that there was, indeed, love behind the attempts.  Here again I am getting ahead of myself because there is a question about mothers ahead and I think my feelings about love and affection were shaped by her. My brother's were too, by attempts at affection and love that were misunderstood by him and my mother, back and forth.  Explanations forthcoming.

_22\. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items._

S has just made light and dark of my feelings toward C, therefore I shall force myself to consider 5 positives of his so I don't answer the text I just got from him now ("Stubbornly clinging to fantasies or coffee?  Choose.  SH’) with any remarks I may regret later. I shall not ruffle him.  Mr. Holmes: 1) You are too damned attractive to strangle, therefore you are safe with me.  2) Your ability to draw conclusions in seconds about nearly any object or situation you are presented with is magnetic to me & always has been.  You are Occam’s Razor in bespoke merinos & I’ve never experienced anyone like you. You have changed my thinking irreversibly for the better, though that might not be visible, within the pages of this poor book.  3) You are surprisingly creative while logo-centric, unless the latter is a layer or a defence, placed loosely upon the first, which I suspect is the case.  4) You understand difficult family ties & death well, without going into particulars.  That matters to me in a friend. We've never needed to go through rubbish questions like *these* to create (what I consider) rapport.  5) You are loyal if not overwhelming in your brand of ‘care-taking’.  But I’ve come to like you for it unless you are being abusive, in which case I will tell you off, yet again.  Okay, I’ll text you nicely that I am not feeling well enough to go out. 

You are persistent, today, aren't you.  No, I am not "being boring by choice".  As is generally the case, damn it.

Bad day, a lot of heaviness behind the shoulder blades, difficult to breathe, leading to sleepiness, nap-planning and a skipped meal that didn’t help things along. I’ve done nothing to feel this tired.  Unless one counts texting Jens for about half an hour and looking at the layout of a luxurious loft he is turning into a flat for two families (two, and soon to be three generations in one large space -- loads of layered glass, stone, and vintage brick with a very large kitchen area in the centre, low benches in front of all the picture windows made of stone, in reference to Irish stone walls, with beech wood tops).  He has started consulting ideas with me, and it’s lovely.  He invited me in yesterday but I couldn’t gather the strength.

That’s right, not well, S, tomorrow, perhaps, I will watch you drink coffee and envy its proximity to your tongue.  Sorry.  Not sorry. 

_23\. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?_

When it was more complete, it was happy, of course.  As for the latter, I cannot say, and I don’t think comparing things like that makes much sense, unless the question is meant to show when someone feels short-changed by the events in childhood, in which case it could be an interesting exploration of what one feels entitled to have had but did not.  This could pull up some painful things.  I have in mind an acquaintance who was beaten by a parent’s partner, or another who was ostracised at school for reasons his parents refused to defend him over.  That sentence didn’t make sense.  Can’t erase fountain pen ink, however.

_24\. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?_

We loved each other so much, very honestly, and that was such a gift to a man like myself.  I cannot remember everything as clearly as I'd like to but I would start by saying she was wise and soft-spoken, with calm, noble manners that made people around her stand up straighter.  Aside from this long nose, I look almost exactly like her, down to hair and complexion though she didn’t stay on earth long enough to grey.  She wore her hair in feathery, drifty, side-ward locks like Princess Diana, like many women then.  She was often tired, with a severe mitral regurgitation meaning she and I spent plenty of time in the salon on the sofa, reading. Her small but swollen ankles up on lovely pillows. Coughing by late afternoon, like me. Her love came from very deep, though people considered her remote, at least compared to our extroverted aunts.  But I can see now that people weren’t patient enough with her at the dinners. I was the only one, despite my age, who really talked to her & not in the least because I was on the sofa many afternoons reading, studying or drawing (David was never around, then).  She had to come out of her shell gradually.  When we did talk, our conversations were very special, and long, sometimes well into the night when I fell asleep mid-sentence, and she never left my questions unanswered, as long as they weren’t about father, who I suppose left and passed on for reasons I wasn’t meant to ask about.  David claimed over and over that Mum was Aspergerian.  As he was a leading voice in his sub-field, and going by the descriptions I have read in the literature, his articles included, I am inclined to agree (conditionally) though I discouraged him from looking for methods to “explain” her, in particular.  (Perhaps he needed that process for himself, to put her to rest?)  His arguments concerned her limited social interactions (including her interaction with him in this), rituals and anxiety over her own body -- she had issues with food, and was terribly thin, but I suspect her meds were to blame -- case in point, the awful sounds in my own stomach, at the moment). Her intolerance of touch seemed to bother him most, that he couldn't spring on her suddenly, as he tended to, and hug her from behind or kiss her cheek while running out the door without scaring her. She merely needed time, as though she had to come up, and rejoin people from somewhere else entirely.  Like bringing her feelings such a distance tired her.  That never bothered me, as I was never put on a schedule of any sort. it just meant going through a certain process.  All of us have processes, barriers, rituals that others have to understand, or? 

We lost her when she was only 36. David was 17 & I was 12 (like S was, sth we have in common), and I remember not being surprised and stayed sort of in a holding pattern, waiting for different news, that she’d come back.  David was explosive, collecting facts, shredding things on sight, reading legal volumes, medical encyclopedias and chatting off record with a policeman, looking for ways to avenge the errors committed by the surgeons that she'd not been revived on the operating table. Her heart had been so enlarged it couldn't be restarted, and she'd got too much anaesthetic, given her low body mass. There was no case, the family wouldn't pursue it, knowing it would go nowhere, which drove David into a fury. The full significance of her absence finally hit me at the funeral, when we each tossed dirt onto the coffin.  While they prayed and talked I was staring down at a mix of blackish soil and deep red petals and stem green, thinking how pretty it was, and right then I had a question for her, followed by the realisation it would go unanswered & I panicked, quit breathing & blacked out and nearly fell forward, to the horror of everybody, of course.  Henry caught me, thankfully.  To make matters worse, when I came to, they were shouting at David for not holding onto me when I was clearly in danger of a faint, and he punched me in the car for needing to be looked after at stupid times & I socked him in the teeth so fast he couldn’t block it and it broke his lip open.  I was pleased as all hell until someone reminded us that Mum was looking down at us right then, which made me cry & apologise.  David told me, "Get stuffed, you're a fucking idiot that you even listened to them, I don't believe in any bloody heaven anymore, as of right now. Fuck it, hell's right here, look. Shut your fucking gob!"  Well.  We arrived at the wake with blood on both our shirts (he’d spat on mine).  Such foolish monkeys we were, I can hardly stand to think of it.  Did I answer the question?  I adored her with all my heart & I still do.

_25\. Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling ... “_

Imagine a reader, book, and we'll do a bit of revision, here:  we both feel that writing is leading to self-explication, though where it should and will end is anyone’s guess; we are both tired of said self; we are both wondering when this ink cartridge will declare it wants no part in bringing form to such rubbish.  Mercy, I am tired at a mental level that is starting to hurt physically, everywhere.

_26\. Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share ... “_

...things with, so that it didn’t feel like sharing because we had a connection that made it all completely natural, with no lies, games, and judgements, and the like. 

...French kisses with real emotion behind them, during a fantastic hand-job.

...my life.


	11. Scarved

_08\. Dec._

S texted that he wanted to drop by.  He and J have been together for 100 days & I told him to aim for 12K more at the very least, to which he sort of grunted but did smile.  J was at work and S needed something to do, apparently, so he listened (more civilised this time) and escorted me by cab to Harrods, where he introduced me to Andy.  Now I have not one but three new scarves -- Andy is good with accessories, indeed (though I don't see why S would say he looks 'foolish', unless he meant the perfume attacks).  He’s small, Vietnamese but has coloured his hair a dark auburn & in contrast to a lime sweater with periwinkle argyle it was quite daring. I liked that colour set.  Once he’d put aside the atomiser in his hand (black, shaped like a grenade), he walked around me and asked me several questions quite unlike “if a crystal ball could tell you what scarf”, &c but more along the lines, “what materials do you dislike against your skin, what area of work are you in if I may ask", and plucked seven scarves from a wall of cashmere blends and spread them out -- like days of the week, and I liked every one of them.  He said, “this juxtaposition of deep indigo and salmon is an unexpected reference to the colour wheel & will compensate for your natural paleness going into spring, because we are looking at the spring-summer lines.  For the coat you are wearing, which I see is a favourite, charcoal grey cashmere, and on the reverse side note the detailing is in olive.  Consider raw silk blended into cashmere, pricey but you’ll not want to take it off, pepper-red under-woven in burnt sienna, to offset your grey hair”, and so forth.  I asked, “What about ombre?”  He made a face like I'd presented a putrid cheese.  “Ombre was hot two seasons ago”, he said, “to one designer, for several hours at the most, he repented as soon as he’d read the Milan bloggers, well, enough to say ‘dipping one’s scarf, party-sickness’, kidding, no, no ombre, it’s not something you'd wear well, at all."  I thanked him and decided I’d listen, for that reply, alone.  So now, here I am, scarved for years to come.  "Perhaps I should return two?" I suggested later, and S got angry and said I should either plan to live or not & stop with the indeterminacy, which is giving him indigestion, because people who do not invest in essentials are playing at something, and explained that I reminded him of a certain serial killer -- whom John shot dead the day they first moved in together. "Through two windows, non-dominant hand, pulmonary artery," he sighed.  (Sighed!) Gracious Peter, we are both sick.  

_09\. Dec._

_27.  If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know._

For this one I could have a hang-tag like the scarf at my right hand, here: “Produced in UK.  Delicate.  Hand Wash”.  That last bit would be lovely, indeed.  I should have another:  Beware, that while I try to rein in the nasties that pull at a man, namely S.A.L.I.G.I.A. superbia, avaritia, luxuria, invidia, gula, ira, acedia, as I am given to them all, I am a fornicator, a man of privileged birth & no small fortune, with expensive tastes, a temper and a tendency to slow to a crawl & feel purposeless & depressed.  

One should also know that I no longer have the nerves I once did, and things boil out quickly in the form of tears or arrhythmia.  In a society like ours where men do not value emotional expression beyond certain parameters, exempli grata hard line rhetoric or team sports, it might disturb some.  Does disturb some.  But I cannot stop it any more than I could stop a sneeze.  S knows something about this.  Publicly, privately, suddenly & even when I intended to laugh and something seems to push things the other way.  It surprises us both how many people mistake a man who weeps in a public place as "feminine", which is entirely off.  S uses the shock of tears to his advantage, at times. That is a subject for another day.

After C & David, if that is an important detail to know.  I believe the loss of my brother was a turning point in many areas. For some months I didn't bother to control expressions of grief, particularly since I was and am alone most of the time, anyhow. Singing, pissing with the doors open, weeping aloud -- a bachelor's habits, lovely, all.

There are several formative befores/afters & should one be a close friend of mine, they are easy enough to pick out.  Sometimes one compares the age or process of coming out, and the causes/effects have been lasting as they tend to be.  So I will explain that David was the most affected by my coming out, going by his reaction.  Not that there was a crowd gathered for the reveal:  our family was gone, we'd lost Claudia the year before.  David had expected we'd take on an area of clinical research together, though we could hardly have a 2-minute call without shouting and one throwing it down by the end. (“What the sodding f- have you become, Lexie-Bertie?”)  He was brighter, though he could not control his anger.  It tore at him all the time.  Poor, dear David.  

Volume: there is one thing I have never had an answer for (one thing among dozens, but this felt important). I told him the wedding was off, for certain, for reasons, and came out to stop him calling Lena's father. He denied things vehemently, which (if we're honest) has felt odd, where I seem recognisably gay among my own, for instance S saw it, instantly. David said, "Fucking hell, not you, too" and looked like he wanted to punch it out of me.  And I said, "Too?" And he waved me off, furious to the point of tears. It was soon over. Now, had he been referring to Henry, or Eustace -- well, they were obvious between us.  Who?  The father he resembles, who I don't know the first thing about, other than his categorical disappearance from our lives, that silence in our mother's every heartbeat?  I don't count how many unanswered questions I have, or I'd have gone off raving, by now.  So I've let it go, I am myself, what more shall I pretend to?  

What else would you want to know, really?

19:05    It is nearly daily, has been for more than a year, even in Austria.  Most of the time it has little to do with specific griefs.  It is a nervous reaction, where I no longer have a cushion against it or a way to channel it.  Everything from joyful to horrid to surprising things.  There is an upcoming question about crying in particular & I may have more remarks, then.  Or are there any left to make?  Yes, I lose it frequently, compared to the men I have been acquainted with, full stop.  Also, if one "is going to become my close friend", that individual should also know that my artwork is dark, though not necessarily a direct reflection of how I am feeling at a given moment.

 

_10\. Dec._

Case in point.  I did it.  I’m a fool.  I asked S to find C.  He growled, sat down, and in less than two minutes online got all of his contact details, CV+portfolio, address, photos of his current street (hardly a street) his newest Skype handle, and the temple he frequents near Bangkok.  He critiqued C’s Instagram feed, deduced him flawlessly (how!) by studying the way he frames human subjects in the streets & warned me not to remain emotionally involved a second longer, while I sat and howled into my hands like a stupid child. It started as soon as I saw his photograph, part of the portfolio, from an 'about' page in National Geographic (!)  So thin, exhausted, looked nearly homeless, Buddhist prayer beads on his wrist.  Gaunt, skin tanned.  His head was shorn, he was dressed in a loose saffron shirt and brownish trousers, cotton shoes.  He was holding his old Leica at his side.  The same one he often pointed at me, so I could only see his smile underneath it.  He wasn't smiling there, his eyes were so empty, those same ones.  It scared me.  S said “Stop crying, he’s not using, just vegan” going by pictures, CV, and to knock it off, because he is making art his way & doesn’t need me, or anyone else. Obviously.  "Yes!  Obviously!  He is alone, has been for a long time, needs nobody, clearly!  Look at his nails, his neck, his knees!  He sewed that cuff himself! There are no more reasons to avoid Jens’ texts, stop dreaming!"  Jens has remarked to S that I am not coming in to chat but what should I say?  My chest hurts when I look at you, Norseman, make me forget what I came to see you for, that would be best of all. 

Dearest, Christmas (though you no longer observe the things we shared, then) is coming and I (matter not -- but) would like to (am, in fact about to) wish you (were in my arms one more time) all the best (though S is right, I have no place in your life, nor you in mine, you were right about the diverging paths) and I am about to go in again at the start of the new year and I am so depressed by the thought that I could ever lose my chance to see you, somehow, in my life.  Which I fear for.  There. 

I have moments of doubt, lately...and they are short, starting in around ten and ending by seven-thirty in the evening on average.  

Look how we cling to beautiful things as we fall.  I feel awful, quite honestly I can’t even eat what's sitting here.  I chose Auntie's Wedgwood tonight.  

Lord, I just want to wake up, please, that’s all.  It needn’t be for anyone, in fact, that was a mistake, vanity, my own uncertainties.

I avoid talking about fear.  Fear and lack of faith feel closely linked and expressing certain doubts brings out others.  

Always forward.  In the direction of light. 


	12. Regarding Carly

_11\. Dec._

An appointment with Abram to review & update will & testament on the 13th.  Most of this afternoon spent on the drawing of a broken underground pipe system, which I plan to watercolour in blues.  A bit of a play on perceptions of breeding and caste.  What does it matter, as long as I finish the ones I have in mind by the new year.

A visit to JIL Group (in order to gaze at Jens, for all I said or added to things).  That unflappable, mannered soul kept me in my seat for almost 2 hours.  Projects, colour boards, samples, ideas.  He wanted to know which I would render in what sort of medium, why, and so on.  I'd not had a chat like that since Uni.  Meanwhile, I was fighting off no small anxiety about how to explain my oncoming situation, and again, never got to it.  He is keen, S is right, and seeing it kept me back, ridiculously, from saying some of what I’d planned to start from.  I watched him, and myself, and if I had moved, made the right remark, I’d have started everything, right there.  He put himself out, I did not.  First, we were standing at a window as he showed me a mock-up of an investment folder, and he was looking at me so close I might have turned my head by a dozen or so degrees -- then the door opened, no knock, which was enough to cool us & it was Julie and Horatio, asking if they could consult ornamental iron girders with someone in Hanover, and yes, they could. 

Spell broken, at least on my side, so we sat down on a pew-type bench of beechwood he has and he poured us sparkling water, which I don’t tolerate unless I can hold it in my mouth before swallowing -- a dangerous enterprise, as he was being quite funny, and at last he set his hand close to mine and asked what I think of the Terminal (X) project.  And I said its hanging greenery arrangements (and similarly-stylized, suspended pedestrian walkways) were *nice* (yes, I said ‘nice’ re. one of London’s best architectonic designs in years), and he answered, book, like this:  “I wonder if I am also nice?” (I adore the way he talks.) I looked at him, and was about to answer that we might meet elsewhere & explore why I think he is, Lord yes, when there was a loud knock.  And that was the first time I have ever seen Jens annoyed.  A flash of it.  He doesn’t let through negative emotions, he is like a proverbial glassy sea, or grey and polished stone, or those smooth, pale hardwoods he loves, the materials of his distinctly airy spaces.  This time, he looked ruffled, and it was H, again -- he handed over a packet of prints, mostly colour blocks, as he is from interiors, and popped out again, humming the entire way -- he'd not explained a thing.  Jens showed it all to me.  Lovely work, I told him, no wonder H won the Space-Tone award earlier this year (the project referred to soft contours of Gaudi’s façades, in his native Barcelona).  Very talented person with energy practically emanating from him. He dances randomly between desks & the ladies enjoy it very much.  Today I’d have liked to see less randomness. 

The moment got away from (my boss and me) & Jens explained that he would like for me to do more of visualisations for their brochures and catalogues.  “We are reaching a client base whose positive discernment of what extra we give is reached through beauty and sustainability of materials,” he said.  “Materials and textures, for a living experience that is tactile and sensible in all ways.  I want our visuals to be hand-drawn and coloured, not CAD generated, the human touch must be in all things, as it was in the Linz portfolio.  I want your touch in it."  I had to exert total control over my face, volume, and nod calmly through that, rather than take a frontal dive.  I managed, apparently.  "You will work with H on interior visuals as well, of individual spaces and homes.”  Beginning in January.  Hell!  I thanked him and told him I will be taking a professional leave, until mid-February.  “Oh. Then we will work and remain on flexible terms,” he said, “though I’d prefer to have you closer every day.”  “I’d prefer that, too,” I said, and he was smiling and looking at my lips, yet we still couldn’t find our footing again, after the interruption.  “Come in on the 13th”, he said, to which I said I had other plans.  Should I have explained?  "Sorry, dear, finalising my will that day, maybe another time.  Or."  Damn it.  In other times, I'd plan to do both in one day.  That is what we are after.  "I'd prefer to have you closer every day." Every possible interpretation of that is good.  "I want your touch in it"?  Mercy.  I'd gladly oblige.  Lexie, stop.

 

_13\. Dec._

_28\.  Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met._

I did this re. S earlier on, shall I go a bit further?  SH:  Despite your tetchy outbursts due to nerves over the creation and presentation of an important gift, and your continued refusal to talk about what you are suffering from (you are hiding something important, for what you think is my 'sake', like everyone else always has, you’re not so different, there, though you fancy yourself a non-mincer-of-words) you are still just lovely & J is among the very luckiest of men.  There.  Do you see how ‘like about you’ cannot be applied in a banal fashion, in your case?  That is Very Good.  Perhaps that is what I like so much?

_29\.  Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life._

I am masterful, here, and there are so many choices one doesn’t know which to settle on.  The book will decide it, quietly. 

1) When I was about nine I asked my dear tutor, Eustace, if it was true he went in for buggery (David told me I should find out) because I thought that could be "a fascinating thing for us to talk about".  Well.  I thought David meant the equivalent of "entomologist" (Eustace was the most wonderful teacher a boy could ever have had, I owe my supposedly-high competence in Latin, literature, philosophy, and rhetoric to *him*, and also Grandmother, of course, who polished it with me.)  Eustace was horrified -- I knew I'd done something awful but he calmly corrected me.  He was Uncle Henry’s last lover, dear volume.  It was true love, I am quite certain.  His collapse when he got the news of Henry's death was everything.  Mercy, the secrets.  That there had to be secrets.  I would never want that.

2) Telling L’s parents that the wedding was off, and hearing her mum just after, “we’ll get you tested straight away, Heaven only knows where he’s been!”  Spoken of a virgin, in that regard, but was I to explain? 

3) My first date out, with D, when P came up completely pissed and wrapped a hand over me and asked me for one more shag for old times, poor thing, she must have mixed things, perhaps pills?  D loved the scene. 

4) The inability to last with K, ever -- he drove me to numerous feral states though he was dramatic and noisy about it.  The knock on the wall from the other side. (“Gentlemen, how many more of you!”)  

5) Then there was E, in the closet, literally, when the bottles of detergent fell on our heads. 

6) N, when he kissed me in front of X at the X.  Can’t.  OMG. 

7) I might add S to this list for the way his hand ‘slipped’, or mine, for that matter.  He has an exquisite arse, and he knows it.  I told him what I thought of it, as well.  “Oh?  And what else?”  Well.  We'd not leave the house much.  Stop, Lexie.

18:25     Abram talks of retiring at last but to me he is ageless, and I told him; he laughed - "Lexie, I'm 78 now, that's a real number to some!"  The best legal counsel I have ever met or heard of.  Seeing him to get the papers together, testament, and so forth, pulls up all sorts of rubbish in my head, we see one another in crisis situations, generally.  Of course my evening is shot, now.  The album, OMG.  He was so apologetic, thought I would be excited.  He’d not realised the introduction had led to so much more, for so long.

20:25     I don’t feel that fire with anyone, and when I've been feeling better I have chased it, ever since, the way they describe addiction, the visceral need for the same titillation in those first heated moments, all over again.  Perhaps I’m not meant to.  Many things seem to point that way.  That at this stage one looks for something calming.  And I should not pull anyone into my orbit for now, should I, when I am cold all over, even my hands are repulsively cold.  For a start.  A calm man like Jens, in my arms (has the room-mate, is finally removing him).  Lord, I would go mad, it has been a long time.

 

_14\. Dec._

Abram was the one who introduced me formally to C, a story that seems to need telling.  Somehow.  I may as well do it, somewhere.  I haven’t been able to stop thinking of it, this week.  These bits I cannot even tell S. 

It began on a rather ridiculous note.  David and I had 20-year investments (made for us when Mum passed away, as David was not yet 18) which needed re-assessing and re-allotment. I’d made up my mind not to buy properties but to consolidate everything in a large environmental project in Denmark, where dividends were bonded by the Danish government and the majority of the research was being done by international engineers, a project I felt strongly about for reasons, where my 600K could grow to at least 720 and be absorbed in event of my death, into scholarships. David chose to invest in mines mainly because some of the Cape Town Villiers once had interests there. I have never felt right about it. I was trying to tell my brother how little has changed in terms of safety and dignity for mine workers & he told me to fuck off with my bleeding heart, that it's stocks, & I bit the hook. In a word, we got in a terrible row in the foyer at an investors’ conference we were attending with Abram; David said the Copenhagen concern was my ‘latest shit taken to the left’ and I replied far too loudly that in ‘his’ mines, workers are detained + forced to defecate on site before they’re allowed to leave gruelling shifts, lest someone had swallowed a precious stone for himself; he struck back louder with unspeakable things on my ‘growing enthusiasm for what one finds up blokes’ arses', and Abram rushed out to hush us up.  Another one for ‘embarrassing moments’ above, because I was shouting for all I was worth about the diamond trade. A kind representative of the largest diamond corporation (yes, that one) poked his head out of the conference room door and asked for a word.  I refused categorically, David went off with him for a cocktail & Abram commandeered me out of the building; I'd already made up my mind, anyhow.  

When I was in A’s office later on that week, arranging management contingencies, the Denmark portfolio &c, he had a large panoramic print of what turned out to be dawnbreak over the Ganges where it flows through Haridwar.  I asked about it & he said, “A good investment, the photographer was at school with my daughter, I sponsored his trip to India several years back, a real eye for it, a series of photo-docs, bought up immediately by the agencies and a few titles, been through Ghana, as well, not far from that mine, a name to watch”.  And said the name.  Carlton Parsons. I said, “Oh, yes, I know him by sight, internship at X." He said, “He’s coming by soon with another print or two, stay on for tea."  I stayed on. C recognised me from the editing room & remembered one of my drawings.  There was something special from the start which I still feel but cannot put into words.  He asked me to a concert that same afternoon by a group of throat singers from Tuva (he’d tickets for it as a press photographer -- we would go to so many unusual and beautiful events, in that short time we had). In that small, dark concert hall, in the rumble of the low tonalities in those exotic, enthralling voices, singing of their nostalgia for their loves and the loyal horses they’d buried their hearts with in the frozen steppes, hearing their melancholy (it sounds bizarre, now, but it was transformative), my heart was quivering like mad, and C wrapped his fingers around my wrist, just as thrilled by the sounds as I was.  We were absorbed in each other, immediately:  we held hands & talked for hours like old friends until I was too tired to keep my eyes open & I slept in his arms, which in all my life I couldn’t (and still cannot) do with anyone else.  And that was our first day.  We started everything else the next morning, kissing & making love after breakfast & a shower together.  He was a brilliant switch & let me start.  Mostly I'd not got to choose.  Bluntly:  getting a man off that way, that I seduced him with my own masculinity, heard him talk senselessly about it, oh Lord, it was lovely, I'll not forget it.  

I'd never been kissed until my mouth hurt and my tea burned my lips but it became our normal state, starting from that breakfast.  After three weeks like that, during which we hardly got any of our assignments done without each other (or on time), where I was drawing in bed sometimes while he was kissing my knees and upward, slowly, a favourite scene over my papers, he explained, “I’ve had a plan for years to leave England to take on a series in Southeast Asia, it’s in 3 months and I will not come back for about a decade, if ever.  But I want to try to show you how I think you should be loved.  Decide, Alex.  We either end this right now, or we carry on.  Those 3 months will be all for you, everything I’ve got.”  Of course I agreed.  What would you have said, book?  That you'd had your fill of a dream?  It was like a ridiculous premise for a film but it was real & the most incredible experience to be cared for like that, one can’t imagine it until it happens & I doubt many people do such things to one another.  I mean, for one another.  Even now, after all these years, and it's been 9, I don’t how to explain it.  We adored each other, inspired each other, one could dive with him to such depths in a moment, then re-emerge and laugh over it all.  He photographed me when I was working or watching him talk, and I cannot bear to see a single one of those images, I don’t ever look that way, now.  Pretty.  Open.  Gracious Mother, those photos S found are so disheartening, too. I can’t bring myself to cue them up. 

How did it end?  It didn't, at least not in a way I could force my heart to recognise.  His choices are literally him, lovely volume.  Carly has a straightforward construction & does what he says he will, a trait I thought I loved, which brought me only pleasure and happiness, because he'd promised to give himself over, show me love & he did, until the day came when he had his one-way to Colombo & he took one soft duffel to Heathrow & his case of lenses and camera bodies.  He cried that morning over breakfast, couldn't eat it.  He had wept, a lot, even in bed, in those last days.  But I didn’t react like he did.  I didn’t believe he would go through with it. I fancied I could keep him, that I was worth staying on for.  A misunderstanding of points stipulated, my mistake.  So I treated our ride to Heathrow as though it were an absurd test of my nerves.  At Terminal 3 he left his boarding card on a bench.  I said, "You don’t want to go, see?"  He was so upset. But then there was an announcement on the loudspeaker to pick it up.  "Don't get it," I told him, "you don't have to do any of this, you know."  And he stood up, held me off at an arm's length, and told me:  “Lexie, we are on different paths, you know we are."  "No, I've never felt that way, look at us, what we have."  "If anyone could change my mind about the path, it would probably be you," he said to me.  "And what? Shall I, then?" "No, no.  You don't understand.  You can’t very well go with me, that's the thing."  "Well no, perhaps not right now. Take me home?"  "There are things that have to be shown, you know I have to be in the middle of it to be a witness.  If I can show what’s happening, I have to do it, people have to know.  I can’t invent the truth, like a fine artist, like you do on paper, I actually have to be there to catch it." "You can do that wherever you are, darling." "Yeah. Exactly. You see, I think you have another journey, something else to achieve in this world, you see, babe? You've got another path."  "Take me home," I said. He shook his head, and I couldn't believe my eyes. I don't remember seeing another thing clearly for ages. Time dropped away right there. I lost it. I told him that I loved him and wanted him to stay, that I need him, and we kissed in the middle of that crowded place, inciting remarks, even, until I was completely sick.  Proving his point even more.  And he told me he loved me, too & left for that flight. 

To this day, I've not heard a word.  I've not gone through his publishers or Abram.  Perhaps I was a pleasant pastime but even after years I cannot accept that idea, of him, of us, or of myself.  It's hard to assess as I've not had an audience for my little stories of disappointment or what have you.  Who would want to hear that I didn’t know what I was doing for days, weeks after he left?  Should one ever divulge the sort of things I imagined doing to myself, as if in further punishment for being unable to keep someone who clearly had better things ahead of him than a life with someone dull and ill?   

Nobody has managed to fuck that man out of me, yet.  Closure is not always possible.  Writing this has taken an afternoon. It's pathetic to read it, actually see it on paper, here.  My hand is killing me. 

I have my legal matters in order.  Abram is so wise, helpful.  But, you see, as if to drive home the point, through the heart, a ridiculous coincidence, he had a new album on his coffee table, and picked it up to show me.  Villages ravaged by flooding and disease, the eyes of those children, wild birds washed up in rows on poisoned coastline, poachers, human trade, horrifying things.  I came completely unglued the second I saw it.  Abram looked away and apologised, though he needn’t have, and I told him so.  


	13. External argument

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1:81

_15\. Dec._

We were at Dr. RK’s & it is settled: the 6th of January, at 9 in the morning.  One (not finishing this). So the famous surgeon/inventor and S appeared to share interests -- in golf, and bicuspid valves.  S is able to discuss mechanical and porcine valves like the professor himself, then turns to iron-putting and tee shots with such-and-such trajectory, yet another skill set of his I’d no clue about, not that I should be surprised.  He was pushing for a certain anaesthesiologist who won't be available that week due to a conference.  Argued strongly for me with another administrator.  Later, by contrast, he was unthinking and rude, making light of things he should not. I can’t even remember now how it all went, I was hardly listening, but it was boorish, concerning fatalities on Mondays, and so forth.  And we talked about odds.  He called me pusillanimous, of all things -- which fucked me off, truly. He pointed out that I needed "external arguments" to go in for the valve & claimed that he was not waving anyone’s affection as a lure (that Jens is keen, as S claimed in Vienna), though I have to wonder -- I’ve never quite understood S's behaviour that day, why he asked me to hold him in front of everyone, including someone a bit shifty in the window.  I tried to ask him about his leap from the hospital roof & he will not speak of it.  He didn’t want to talk about J either, though I believe he has given him the ring by now.  Finally I asked him if I should consult a language parser instead of carrying on there, for all he was saying: banter, for the sake of putting my stress down to silliness, or the existential matters to religious superstition.  I couldn’t bear the sarcasm right then, and he reminded me that I might tell Jens about the situation, that I am being stubborn.  Perhaps prolonged exposure to criminological matters makes one more cynical toward the human body?  He also tends to respond to others’ stress by putting up a wall rather than listening.  It makes me think he was raised that way, told to pull himself up by the bootstraps when showing any failing, a traditional upbringing, perhaps?  Schools?   Or the brother he has mentioned?  Father?  (The watercolours by his mum said something quite different!!!)   He can be so kind, so caring, and then turn and bite your hand once you’ve worn out your welcome, as if he’d never needed you to begin with.  He is the one who dragged me to the appointment, as I pointed out, apparently to try his own patience?  And he did apologise.

_30\. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?_

Refer to above.

_31\.  Tell your partner something that you like about them already._

I am at a loss on some of these, really.  How about Jens, with whom I plan to go to lunch tomorrow:  You are disciplined without being stiff, forward-thinking with a remarkable background in art history, sharp and knowledgeable but never condescending, a skilled artist and researcher, very successful.  And doubtlessly a delight to top.  (Shall we order, then?  Ha.)  Placid, an authority to dozens of staff, a footing, a source.  Dear me, I'm close to taking a desk job with you.

_32\.  What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?_

Now? Well.

Certain facts of heaven and hell, and the soul, which S found so funny at the hospital today, I cannot bring myself to joke about.  But may it be said that some things are very funny to me but not to others.

Dental appointment, made. 

I want to finish these questions.  It’s almost the end (of the 45-minute period of making the acquaintance with another!  Ha!  Who on earth would have stayed in the room.  And would I have!?  I wonder what I could have heard from the other person?)

_33\.  If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone?  Why haven’t you told them yet?_

A good many people die under such circumstances, suddenly, alone, and/or without the ability to communicate, and we’ve no idea what conundrums one faces in those final seconds, and I admit my own thoughts have been anything but elegant in emergencies, more like a repetitive scramble upward again, and little else.  We are not profound animals as we die; our nature doesn’t allow it.  I’ve thought of it plenty, how it makes sense to try to keep things clear in one's relations. I am drafting a note for S in my mind.  There are things left to say but they change constantly.  I am far more worried about an attack or event at another, less favourable time when *with* someone. Here I am going to lean on ‘etcetera’.  Do let me.

_34\. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire.  After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item.  What would it be?  Why?_

If I have to choose something under such extreme circumstances, I suppose it would be the Villiers’ family tree, as that volume is truly irreplaceable.  Should be deposited, in fact, or just sent on to Danny in Cape Town?  Perhaps I will have it scanned properly for the holidays.  No sense in hiding the thing away in a bank vault, they may not even know who has it, now.  

The rest is located elsewhere, expendable, replaceable or irrelevant.  Truly.  I realised this when I was drawing up the testament with Abram.  That's actually the remark that led to him showing me the album of one who had renounced his things, aside from his cameras. His eyes.  Lord.  Must stop this wave that comes on each time.  It is over. But it isn't.

 _35._   _Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing?  Why?_

These questions could scare or hurt people, really.    

_36\. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen._

I think the density of the fear I have right now is typical of heart patients with previous OHS experiences, so I won’t explicate it here, because I wouldn’t ask for advice over that.  Even mentioning it, apparently, is discomfiting enough to make S flippant and dismissive, in defence.  The writing process helps (me), I can see that much.  And in fact seeing a record of my time also matters, the evidence of it (myself) is comforting.  My hand is more resilient already.  I’m not in a working phase no matter how I try, and the blue underground piece is not coming along quickly or well but there’s no sense in forcing things out of myself that don’t wish to be there on the page. 

There is a problem, though.  S is right about one thing (many things but one comes to mind now) that I have settled for several poor outlets for my work, true.  I was picking up things on my desk and filing them earlier on and I can see that I have scattered my work over so many areas that it has little cohesion right now, particularly the last year or so, when I have, admittedly, slowed to a crawl creatively.  I suppose we all go through slumps -- there is a body of work, a largish one (mostly for M-, pipes, lines) and almost thirty for the ladies’ texts, not terribly few.  A number of sketches and portraits, studies, which lack the real depth and contact with the subject I’d like to have reached in them, though that cannot be helped, at the moment.  In the New Year:  it will be better.  I remember the difference, the oxygenation.  I count on it.  Jens’ idea re. visualisations sounds very appealing, words, packaging and opportunities, and all.  So, we shall see one another tomorrow.


	14. Over lunch

 

_16\. Dec._

Lunch with him.  The place we met was in Bloomsbury, ‘Brewed Under a Pretext’, frequented by journalists as I understand things & run by the daughter-in-law of a dissident; Jens explained a bit.  Rather loud flute over the lunchtime chatter (S dislikes flute-dominated music hence memorable tirade re. spinal tapping once in a shop, a flurry of angry deductions -- they did shut it off for us, today no such luck).  Jens had got there some minutes before me and had taken a table just at the window, where he'd propped his tablet to read.  Our greetings & pleasantries were exchanged over longish looks.  I put out my hand and he slipped his fingers against my palm, remarking that I should warm myself.  Yet (or because of this) I didn't take my chance to lean in to kiss his cheek as I’d meant to, I was a bit off-kilter.  I’d waited an extra ten for the cab and my heart was still evening out over it.  And I could not have afforded to walk that last block quickly.  

So once I’d settled in I asked about his reading and he put the tablet in front of me and asked what I thought of -- it!  He had a version of "36 Qs to creating rapport/intimacy".  (Gracious Mother, just when I thought I’d created rapport, not to speak of intimacy with one’s self, no.)  “I see you have read it?” “Yeee....” (That was me, laughing.)  “You know, I considered it interesting,” he said, and took a sip of mineral water, gesturing at the table that I have one, as well.  “A coincidence,” I told him, “because, you see [save the moment, Lexie, you shall!] I’ve read it & I was even thinking of you & what you’d make of it.” (Implication: therefore I laughed, just now.  Hell!)  Understandable -- he wanted to lighten things, chat.  In hindsight I suppose he might have been nervous.  I was not, but I can’t say I arrived entirely put together, it’s been too long, and I’ve forgotten some of the rituals, including the excitement beforehand.  Not a good morning for me, could not get started until ten.  He said, “Do you know, it begins with the choice of whom you’d want as a dinner guest?”  I replied that “yes, that question presents a certain dilemma.” He looked puzzled. It occurred to me that I was making our (my) situation far more difficult than need be.  “The act of asking the question,” I clarified, without clarifying anything whatsoever.  I was about to mention the complication of 2 people answering 36 in-depth Qs in 45 minutes.  Then a waiter came with 2 soups for us, he’d ordered everything ahead, explaining that he had only an hour, which would have driven my point home, had I made it.  Brine-like & in truth I should not have touched it.  I will be washing that out of my system all evening.  He’d chosen the place for their pickled herrings (Russian cuisine, mainly), served in oil and eaten with tiny pitch-fork-type spears with funny curved, pointed tails but we didn’t share -- b/ the oils they were in.  But my own dumplings (potato/cheese, can try to make with S?) were quite good (though boiled in tincture of Dead Sea, too, and covered in clotted cream and sugar -- I haven’t eaten out more than once a quarter this year, I realised today, and this was nothing like the kitchen of steamed groats and fish I usually inhabit).  He explained that if he could eat with anyone it would be someone who’d brought him the most inspiration, perhaps a historical artist, and then told me very kindly that he was pleased *I’d* agreed to meet and talk today.  I answered that I was pleased to have been invited to.  He mentioned the illustrations again and then he said it:  his ‘star’ this autumn, in Linz......so kind.  I reiterated that I was pleased to have had the chance.  He said -- glad to have found me, that we might thank S even if circumstances were less than recommending to us both, at the start, he added.  True, very true. 

Yes, I was pleased.  Yet I came back home feeling unsettled, mainly because it had gone by too quickly for me (the plate-glass feeling, staring in at a scene which is in fact all in my hands, were I able to manipulate it), in such noisy surrounds, and I didn’t feel I’d got through the idea that I was glad to be there, before we had to leave, and several things he said made me think he was trying to praise me, as though I was not pleased to be there...hard to explain.  He told me at the end that H. had designed the orange and mahogany interior of the place, and pointed out the shapes of the tables and chairs (which resemble palettes and banjos, perhaps) reminding me politely that I might like to get acquainted with H's work-style in the interim, before I begin closer co-operation with him.  “He’s intuitive with environmental arrangement for achieving ambient colour in commercial spaces,” he said.  At which I had to suppress:  my ex-fiancée has an interdisciplinary degree in colour theory & psychology & we wrote most of her MA thesis together -- does this recommend me, I wonder?  “Yes and it was a lovely lunch, thank you....”  Lord, the things we all hold in ourselves.

 

[END OF PARALLEL ACCOUNT TO PART 1 OF “SKETCHY”]

 

_19\. Dec._

Yesterday awoke & had a fantastic morning.  Brilliant dreams, favourites, sexy futuristic spy-game-sorts-of-climates with blazing colour, far too excited for own good.  Overdid myself, so to speak.  J texted re. choosing a gift for S two days ago and we made plans to go to the Colourmen on Great Russell Street.  I got a potted spruce and as some maintenance was being done on the lift I carried it under my arm up to my flat, it should not have mattered, and yet things have got to where they have.  May this be a record and reminder of what I've allowed myself to become.  I couldn't carry 15 lbs of weight and take any stairs.  I had to set it down every two or three.  Shameful.  J decided I needed to stay in and I asked him to take the tree along with him.  I had the impression they’d enjoy it more though J mentioned S doesn’t care for Christmas, I'd forgotten.  He insisted on monitoring me for half an hour so we chatted about watercolours & S's artwork & I showed some examples of things he might consider shopping for.  He was looking at my furniture. It is "divisive", according to S, who recently said it "exceeds norms in the velour index to the milk of human kindness" (or something similar).  “Vintage thing going,” J said, and then his ears went all red, "not saying it's -- old. Or I did. Sorry. Your wrist, again?" He counted my pulse and coughed. He’s very sweet. I can’t imagine him shooting anyone in the heart, even for England, though we all hide things.  The ring suits him but pointing that out might have done him in.  I’m going out tomorrow for the last of the errands and shopping before the tests.  Sophie wrote she’s not coming down to London for Christmas, nor in the New Year; sadly, her sister is not responding to treatments.  Four texts from Jens, today, he thinks of me at work, wants me to come by.

 

_20\. Dec._

Busy.  Teeth in order.  I asked, dentist explained need to plan dental work around Warfarin, namely not taking it for several days in the event of needing more invasive procedures.  A number of changes ahead, agreed.  Chopped nearly two inches off my hair, the aim being to avoid needing to raise my arms to comb it -- I don’t mind the change (odd w/ cold ears) but more wiry.  Well.  There’s another point on my mind, in fact.  I ran into J at a cafe with Kadi Perkins. I was parched after the dentist’s and popped in to the first place I saw -- they were having coffees -- I suppose they met at the art supply shop.  She is just as lovely as ever.  When I came by J was shrugging and saying, “whatever’s wearable is removable." I agree wholeheartedly, here.  But I was sort of knocked off balance hearing it and then he got red in the ears, like he does, and said, “clothing is removable”, and coughed.  I didn't know if I should greet them or let it go.  Kadi solved it by noticing me and smiling.  And I wanted to ask J if he’d chosen something for S.  He has, perhaps the paints.  He seemed nervous but I don't want to read into things. Were one to listen in to chats between S and myself, and may that never be the case, they would make all sorts of assumptions! Preparing for confession tomorrow.  Have been re-reading the First Epistle of Peter.  Petrine or not, chapter three is gorgeous.  Key to S. before tests.


	15. Turn thee unto me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:3

_21\. Dec._

I’ve some penance, well into the new year, beginning from a number of the Psalms.  I got a new brick of a good cerulean, and it seems to have helped me find my way back to the work table.  I should let this colour take the lead more often.  

Tea with S at Baker Street, gave him key, he was milder this time.  He figured out that the tree had been mine, somehow, and teased me (“I know a Bramah key in a man’s pocket when I see one” ha) but worse were remarks over the truism I had the misfortune of letting slip, but all ends well with a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan.  Ech.  Lord, it’s terrifying to know there are others out there, with such corrupted heads -- I can’t remember my own mobile number half the time and here I am, singing bits of "The Gondoliers" with S over a "cuppa".   

Christmas is coming, I have no idea what I’m on about at the moment.  Irony chases me like the moon once chased us in our car -- from its fixed point, we look upon it with awe and a bit of unease, and there it is.  Namely:  emptied of sins, forgiven, one seems to want to fill the space they’ve left.  Human nature. 

I spent one long (longest) solstice night, fucking C.  Yes, I am going to write it down, who would ever care?  There is no audience blushing at our story, what we did, it was incredible and to be loved so much meant rediscovering the self, learning responsiveness to another.  Every bit of skin seemed to have been starved, independently, each bit of the body wanted its own chance with his hands, and we were fierce in bed with each other, emotionally monstrous, feeding, fucking, biting at each other’s mouths -- energetic, nothing gentle once we had started.  Except his words.  How he could narrow my focus to that tiny place and turn me inside-out with pleasure, just talking and fucking me through it.  Being taught to come all over again, restringing of the body & its nerves. 

I'd want a little bite, on my chest.  That when they'd cut in they'd know but not say:  that's awkward, ha, but part of a story; someone did that to say goodbye, or to say hello; he'll want another, he matters, to someone; this one is loved."  (Would they think this way?)

All this written in earnest as though there was a ‘dilemma’ in the form of a lover wanting to mark my body all over, standing before me, asking why I am being bashful.

 

_24\. Dec._

Christmas Eve!  I escaped the cardiology unit in time -- no push to keep me longer, ha.  Non-standard tests, for someone's paper, perhaps, as S suggested, given dearth of reliable stress test data on mitrals.  Ventricular contractile reserve very poor, a bit of head-shaking and affirmation of the need for the upcoming surgery &c.  Nowadays, I heard yesterday, the initial replacement would be a case for a less invasive repair though with unknown prognosis long-term; repeated sternotomy (x 3 more, perhaps) = no more tissue valves recommended; there were reassurances that one adjusts, yes, bleeding is an issue.  Mhm.  High risk group, extra blood work.  That’s how it is put:  the assumptions -- one is tired of dreaming it will change, so quickly.  For now, we have the overtures of awareness.  (“Just in case, not singling you out, or.”)  One is tempted to pretend at things. 

I am in a poor excuse for a mood.  Funny things come from the pen when I can neither concentrate nor erase.

15:32     (Yes, exactly) S claims that when he flirts with female clinicians they tend not to add screening for HIV.  Terrifying paradox, really.  I don’t want to think about this nor his data-gathering, which I have no doubt is effective enough.  He’s writing.  Texting some ideas for paper.

Psalms 25: 9, 15-18 -- The meek will he guide in judgement: and the meek will he teach his way [...] Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.  Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted.  The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring thou me out of my distresses.  Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins. 

17:35     There was no epiphany moment when I was younger.  No.  Rather, felt drawn to beautiful and kind people, boys and girls, since ~ age 12.  Was removed from school often enough (flu, AF) that I didn’t stay in a group where I might form longer, more legible? attachments.  I read through numerous books, identifying with the loves of men and women, both.  Romance, was.  While I suspect my family knew about this ambivalence (I still wonder if Mum thought of it that way, or knew) they ignored it.  It wasn’t an issue.  There weren’t many children with whom I might have talked or learned (of) certain things, either.  Most of the time, as a teenager, I was with people two generations my elder, well guarded at all the parties and events, kept busy in summers, and so forth.  Which did not stop me imagining that one of the impeccably dressed gentlemen nearby would try to kiss me in the garden, or by the hearth.  Nobody would have dared to initiate me & in truth, I often hated myself later for wanting it to happen, for trying to make it happen, on occasion.  I told myself that a gentleman would understand my lack of experience better. Absurd, which is why I've never admitted this to any person. I focused on rhetoric, Eustace would give me topics and role-play them with me:  “You are an Epicurean who will argue with a Roman General over his insistence that his men should sacrifice themselves in battle.  Prepare your primary arguments in Latin, you have an hour!” -- at which I would appear in a sheet-toga and shout my heart out with him.  It was great fun.  Not often, but we did go in for sheet-togas in the warmer months, in the garden.  Wonderful teacher. A writer though I've never seen his work.

For a brief time some of the family talked of me going in for seminary studies -- but by then I knew more and the culpability was crushing to imagine.  (Is still.  B.)  Well.  For all of my emerging desires to, I didn't have any encounters with men while I was still seeing the girls, including Lena, when I’d have been close to it, soon.  Dear Lena.  I slowly understood that I could go on and give my beautiful wife-to-be the child she wanted & I’d have an heir, but.  But.  Fantasies are insidious & begin a slow trickle toward adultery.  I realised I would resort to thinking of others to be able to satisfy her, at the very least.  Depression made it all more subtle & I didn’t see why it was happening until it was right in my face.  1) I don't remember our father, nor did Mum ever see anyone else, to my knowledge, so there was no couple, only Mum, the help, Grandmother, my visiting aunts. 2) Henry & Claudia were my archetypal marriage in my teen years.  No attraction, but there was deep platonic love and their shared interest in music.  Auntie Claudia loved my uncle’s songs, praised & supported him.  3) I’d not had much touch growing up, so it seemed normal enough between them and I didn't question the fact they never as much as kissed each other's cheeks. Even as I pen this I see how utterly cushy and ‘kept’ I was, that is, from understanding what such marriage would entail.  4) It was really only after reading on _Verschiebung_ , or displacement, and trying to memorise some of its tenets for an examination that it hit me fully:  I was choosing to live almost exactly like Henry had, in a lifelong marriage of expediency -- friendship.  They were childless & nobody mentioned the reasons, of course, one simply does not.  5) I let that settle in for a few days and realised I was not truly attracted to anything in Lena but her intellect and kindness.  I had been avoiding her without thinking much about why, only that I ought to focus on her more, and would, once the stress of the wedding was behind us. I started to imagine myself freed of it all, and what I would do.  Among my thoughts: go abroad, do an internship, see how it feels with a good man.  Or not, as the idea of being fucked scared the hell out of me.  6) Shortly after, I was at the British Library, and my thoughts must have been all over me.  I'd hardly pushed myself out of the flat so I was over-dressed, over-wrought & over-curious. I was approached 4 times that afternoon, whereas it had hardly ever gone beyond a look or a fleeting idea in my life, before.  I didn't go off with anyone but the idea turned me on so madly I nearly couldn't hold off.  All the "ambivalence" I'd always felt toward women & men clicked:  it's not a "romantic nature". It is being gay, with the added friendship of women & first-class denial.  I was 26 & the date was the 9th of May, 5 weeks before our day.  7) I spent the next week in bed with a horrid cold, thinking about blokes, checking myself -- a sort of verification of all the denial, and racked my silly head about what to do. Now it seems absurd but I was so much less experienced, then. Lena and I had nearly everything arranged. She was fitting her lovely dress for the third time, re-choosing entrées, receiving the first cards and gifts.  Oh, mercy, it was so much to reverse all at once.  When I was able I asked her over and we talked for a very long time, very honestly, about what would happen if we went forward with the wedding.  She acknowledged it with what I can only describe as humility.  She didn't want anything more from me, of course, but her love was sincere.  "It will be hard, you know, not to love you anymore. I guess I ought to have known this wasn't for real. What will they say? Are you sure it's not just me?" Her acceptance was replaced with resentment and disappointment. Her parents turned instantly.  I lost myself for a while. Cheap encounters, testing the ground around my feet, I suppose.

Why do I wear Henry's old things, S has asked.  But he knows why.  That life.  We lost him far too soon.  I was nearly nineteen when he died, such a shock, a senseless death.  I shouldn’t put it so vainly before the Lord but I have always felt that choking (on a meal, at what is now my kitchen table, imagine, plus he was hardly ever alone; Auntie had run out of flour & had gone out to a shop; she never forgave herself) was a cruel end to a tenor admired by hordes of radio listeners for nearly a quarter-century.  Dear Henry.  I believe he found his great love, in my tutor. Even if it had to come so late in life, he did experience it.

A text, Boxing day, apparently, a get-together at Baker Street.


	16. Christmas at Baker Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:5

_25\. Dec._

The confirmed-by-research 6-week cultural-adjustment period has hardly passed, and indeed, like clockwork, I miss Linz.  I’d have enjoyed staying on for Christmas, must spend the holidays in Vienna, someday.  A quiet day.  I was at church this morning and as I was standing to leave, the elderly lady who spoke to me recently (re. plenitude of girls in London) stopped me and introduced me to her niece, kindly stepping aside and ringing a friend, to allow us a moment to speak.  Martina was in her early thirties, perhaps, a small ginger with soft hands and lovely freckles round her nose.  Face pinking while blenched white in patches.  She’d been thrown into an introduction without context so I was better prepared to talk my way out of it than she was.  As a busy programmer, she doesn’t get out much, she explained, then blurted that her relatives are pressuring her to "find someone" & date.  “I’m not sure I need anyone, like -- you,” she said.  An unspoken declaration of more.  I told her it was *really* fine.  “Thanks, you know, I know -- uh --” she whispered, “I’ve seen you before, it’s okay.  Nice to have met you, and all.  So.  Merry Christmas?” 

How we pass one another by / over in this life.

I shall wake up.  I shall wake up.  I shall wake up.  I shall wake up.  One plea to each corner of the Earth for a better New Year.

“I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.” (Ps. 16:8)

I made a small baked cod and wild rice with toasted almonds.  Delicious.  Cottage cheese rye toasts + oregano & it would have been nice to share. 

I should like to shut off my needs.

 

_27\. Dec._

Texted with Jens.  He was also alone for Christmas, a pity we didn’t realise it.  He claims my phone was out of service (?) though S texted me numerous times, with invitations and remarks -- no issues, there?  Not sure what to make of that. S suggested the satellites had got overloaded.  Damn it.

So, Boxing Day:  very nice.  I'd not seen them together at home before.  It’s lovely to watch them.  It’s not even that they show their affection -- no.  In fact, they were guarded.  I felt we were all hindering an impending seduction by being there.  Tension rather high.  One can say S burns visibly & nervously but J is no less energetic -- he is a passionate man, which is easier to see when he is in his own space.  It isn’t only frustrations of an ex-soldier, no. I think he has an intensely emotional self that he has boxed up in taking on certain roles.  He chose the military, medicine.  (And.  Shall I say it?  Women.)  And consider the man he loves at the stage in his life when he is most experienced and has the most to give. 

I brought him a proper whiskey, though perhaps I should not have, as S complains and texts madly whenever J goes out for a pint.  For S, I brought “Accidents of Youth” -- the only book David and I both liked, a rather rare one for reasons, for his library. I'd hoped to adapt it as a comic, someday.  (That much I did not bother to explain.  I hope he will read it, it is so hilarious.)  Now.  A sentence or two re. DI GL, S’s friend from the New Scotland Yard:  how one would manage to solve crimes in that man's presence is anyone’s guess & I may have discovered the real reason the Met’s stats are dropping.   (I shouldn’t make light of things when people are truly and rightfully upset. The press is calling for improvements & changes in the New Year.  I cannot understand why the police won’t bring back their independent experts if the success rate was that much higher when consulting S and others.)  Well, I stayed in the kitchen or I’d have made a nuisance of myself. I think the DI saw I was staring though I cannot find it in me to regret it.  What a man:  silver-haired, strong jaw and chin, dark, wide eyes, though nervous around the lady, who S told me was J’s girlfriend, many years ago.  The child, Mike, was a delight.  He is the son of the very Sergeant who saved J’s life in Afghanistan, sadly departed this year after complications with abdominal cancer.  I recall the descriptions of the funeral, which was quite hard on S, as he worried about J’s mental condition.  The father’s strong character appears to have been passed on to the child.  We did some riddles while we painted a gun he’d drawn for S & S looked on.  Mike explained he is designing new guns for the special forces because the ones they have "get ‘em in all sort'a trouble", which I did agree with, and he explained that "his one" shoots backward to kill someone who should not be using it, presumably on the basis of fingerprint ID -- clever.  He has an idea for another, he says, which always fires a warning shot first because an officer on telly was put in prison for not firing one, he said, & “Mum said he just forgot to”.  We need thinkers, I told him, so watch what people need and keep designing.  By all means.  He was chuffed, though he was still standoffish toward GL while the guns seem to be for his approval, primarily.  Trying but shy about it.  Understandable.  S was quiet and didn’t add much. He might have, but he was rubbing his lips distractedly & staring over at J as he talked and gestured.  J was very much attuned when S gave GL a flash-drive and there was an odd exchange concerning S’s brother (whom J once called ‘a megalomaniac’?). I nearly crashed into the DI's back, coming out from the toilet -- he was leaning right by the door: “Dunno, I can look but if I bollocks things right now....Ufff!" (That was my impeccably timed point of entry.) "...Sorry, mate.  Look, with your brother, right?  That's the last thing I'm gonna need."  S made a "pshaw" at him.  "Hey, I'm serious, I'm not risking it, just."  S rolled his eyes for reasons unknown. "My brother can --" he trailed off with a growl and the DI went back to talk to the lady, Linda.

I wonder what S's family must be like -- if they all wrinkle their noses that way when they're being facetious and (more crucially) if any others have those curiously-shaped lips!  Perhaps there is a strong, shared eye-roll gene? Or one for those finger-tapping-things of his?  I'd be willing to bet S is a one-off, though.

I have a new 0.04 tip to work with. How did S know I lost that exact width while in Linz?  Knowing him, he divined it by seeing what I have not drawn with lately, as he focuses more often on "the meaning of the absence of things" than anyone I have ever known.  Then again, I have begun focusing far too much on absence, myself.  I hardly felt the passing of the holidays, this year, and I do regret that. 


	17. Unalterably yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:7-9

_28\. Dec._

A call from Sophie, nice to catch up though finding common topics was oddly not-straightforward.  Not sure why.  I didn’t mention much from my side -- consistent with another missed chance I had, to explain my oncoming situation to Jens:  I was in Knightsbridge yesterday & we chatted for a half-hour or so while waiting for Horatio to come back to the office after his lunch break. His entrance was more like an interpretive dance, which we could hear through the door to Jens' office ("ba baba ba rrra da da").  He’d forgotten his colour boards and swatches, short-circuiting the meeting we were meant to have had about illustrating those materials.  Therefore we spoke about partitions, and the visual or aural barriers they create in multi-functional spaces.  When it comes down to functionality, I have a more conservative approach to space than they do, by preferring to have "chambers", as Jens calls them, for individual purposes, rather than wide-open space. Jens and Horatio were admiring some loft-type arrangements in Copenhagen with white, draped curtains (about three yards tall, and retractable, mounted in ceiling rails made of copper water pipes) as room dividers, which reminded me of hospital privacy curtains though I held my tongue. The open floor-plan would be, as H pointed out, a fabulous place "to move", though it would lose on sleekness once a lad added his slippers, beta-blockers and a half-eaten apple into the picture -- or left his mug with a litho of Prince Albert on that glass and burl coffee table.  (Guilty as charged -- but he is durable, this old Albert!  Even S didn’t manage to chip him a mite when he dropped him into the steel sink from shoulder-height recently.  I won.) 

Another design I saw today included a sling-type hammock arrangement near the kitchen instead of a bedroom, useful when there is an appointed fridge sentinel to thwart predator snackers, I suppose.  My brother would have gone in for all that.  I asked Jens why he doesn’t tend to use coloured glass (which I adore, really) and he said the expense and labour repel most people from choosing stained-glass installations, and that they're considered old-fashioned and easily become unwanted focal points.  Then he showed me some snapshots of an absolutely incredible floor which is being installed in a flat, all glass, but intaglio-etched, and sandblasted from below.  The panel is perhaps 10 by 10 feet and apparently cost upwards of 90K for the work, done as a favour!  To get it into the flat they had to remove the window panes and hire a crane to lift it horizontally, risky, I imagine, as the vibration, etc.  I didn’t ask for specifics.  It is essentially a map of the ocean floor that once separated a man from his fiancée in New Jersey.  Jens asked what we thought of it.  I told him, “Well, the client has objectified the former barrier in their relationship, lovely.”  H started to laugh because he thought I was being funny.  I suppose I was.  I might have gone for a less abstracted “mm, neat” which seems to work well for S.  But I find I don’t care much about design choices unless I know why they were made, or when there is some emotional involvement.  I do believe I have hit upon something.  Lexie, stop.

19:35     Once I have finished this supper I will be turning in.  So much to be grateful for. 

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.  John 14.27

Thinking of C.  Perhaps the sun is waking him, now.  I would love to see that happen.  The way his eyes opened and were instantly alert. Deep green, lined in brown. His rough cheeks. How he would cage me between his arms, share.

I’m tired and writing silliness.  I promised myself I would not cry again this year and I have got worse than ever. Who would tolerate this.

 

_29\. Dec._

"Alex, you’re literally the only one on the planet who's got time!"  At least now there is one thing to recommend me. 

So another last-minute illustration this afternoon has appeared "on the planet" to go with a filler article called “My Friends’ Irksome Pets”, which I had no ideas for until I got into a texting binge with S and the words “piracy” and “devil” came up.  That led straight to “the parrots of good & evil” on either shoulder of a deeply offended, pretty girl in a plastic raincoat who is trying to sip tea & listen to her friend chatter on.  Ha!  Anne was working a short enough printing deadline she couldn’t have refused it, anyhow.  She laughed so hard when she opened the scan on her monitor that I could hear her drop something.  A good way to end our year.

In fact, I have 8 days' time.  At least!  There are plenty who have fewer and I do feel for them, tonight.

  

_31\. Dec._

Jens & I met for a very short tea break though I was hardly able to wake myself up in time.  11:00 is early even if I get up at 8:30.  The breathing. Without lifts and cabs I'd not leave my rooms often.  I said, “In a week.......” and there we had a chance -- but he got a call, and I again did not say it.  I don’t want to hear myself say it to him.  He is so nice -- overworked but never complains about those who do not pull their weight.  He wanted to show me the placement of skylights, and discuss light.  He mentioned that I help him talk through designs and he appreciates it.

 

_01\. Jan._

  1.   I shall curb the texting.
  2.   A trip to the Continent at least once in the coming year.  Switzerland or Austria.
  3.   I will begin the series.  It is time.
  4.   Carry on with processes of letting go.
  5.   It might be a good idea to talk to someone about pharmacological matters.



 

_02\. Jan._

Change from 6th to 4th. Monday, the day after tomorrow. Due to flu among members of operating team, they said. I agreed & I've started the fasting.

Lord help me, this is scaring me to hell.  I want to call back and I am literally not allowing myself, b/c if the flu reaches me in the interim, &c. The other option was for the 22nd.

Dear volume, to be held in a man's hand -- as you are, now.  And these are not things one can simply ask for from another, and have, and feel good about, and he cannot so easily steal a kiss along the way, or a little something more, even when he has many, many more days during which to try. OMG I'd have wanted to have one more kiss, it would feel so wonderful. To attain one, though. Yes, indeed.

_03\. Jan._

I asked S over to review the locks and the rest, exchange New Year's greetings properly.  Makeshift goodbyes were also part of it.  He was impatient but not on my account.  He asked if I’d told Jens and I said no.  I tried to thank him yet it came out quite formally and not as I’d wanted it to.  It was rushed and we were both out of sorts.  When I mentioned J in the context of passing on greetings, S asked me all at once about Kadi, though not by name, mentioning the Russian synesthete perfumer.  I suppose they met?  Apparently I am black in colour to him because of my pills?!  Not a pleasant thought though it hardly matters.  I tried to ask how J knows Oleg but S was busy trying to divine who J had been with.  Perhaps Kadi but it would be far simpler if he’d talk to J. He was too upset to be set straight just then.  We plan to see one another soon enough.  There is that.

Everything is ready.  Now it is merely The Wait.  I am to appear at four this afternoon for the "prep and overnighter" which is far less promising than it sounds, book, and involves little else beyond depilating the arms & chest.  I shall leave this in the kitchen for S as he habitually checks my fridge.... 

So, here we are.

 --------------------------------------------------

My Dearest and Best Friend, please find three visiting cards to the right, with contact details to the individuals whom you shall inform without delay in the event of my death or incapacitation as defined in degrees by the MCA.  I have made arrangements in the form of an advance decision along with the testament, left with Abram Mahlersohn, my solicitor, who has Lasting Power of Attorney in matters of burial and estate.  

Thank you above all for your friendship; you have remained closest to my heart in all these months and I hope I have shown that your efforts and engagement during recent weeks have helped me take courage despite the unknown set of events which lie ahead; I do understand that it unnerves you at times and for that I apologise. 

I admire you greatly for your talents, which I consider matchless.  

Give John my regards. 

Honour one another, live well and walk toward the light. 

Remember me as unalterably yours,

Alex 


	18. Back

_11\. Jan._

Move → elbow, not shoulder.  Spiro./1xhr.  S at 3.  Funny.  2 nurses.  2nd army!  Prob. b/c codeine v. randy change it tomm. imposs. to think

 

_12\. Jan._

Bedbath, army nurse.  Lord help me.  Can walk 2x/hr to ea. room v. well. 

Good soup f S. was 10 min.  Write + breathe in 1 move 1 pain, easy.  Laughs good for breathing, back hurts.  New meds.  Dreams.  2 nurses?  ‘Lady Susan’ by J.A. -- “how is yr judgement enslaved!” yes!!  Hot/cold but ok after walks. 

 

_13\. Jan._

Can think but cannot rush out, in pursuit!  Below-elbow method -- drawing.  Can do 5 minutes or 10 before rest. 

S combed, I purred & he laughed.  Funny.  He was op in thoracic cav 2x, tore adhesion?  Mad

2nd nurse, def. army + not NHS?  S always misses him & can’t deduce for me

Energy in mind & limp lk elder smoker.  Pills + tests.  3.1 INR aiming for 2.0, 1st high & then low

Jolt of lift ok, will try tomm. w/S.

He makes good nat. soup fresh l. Italian unsalted, rosem. & basil brill. yellow millet excellent set out all things in kitchen + book at the table.

Analgesics v.good now, back hurts evenings, coughing -- pain but one can. 

Texts from Jens nice so sweet in hosp. but upset.  My fault.

I wanted to tell him & my mistake but it was larger than me this time.

S. painting and a talk -- ‘sluttish exes’ (B.! OMG, shouldn’t) and Pipestripe ‘only top’ can’t control my tongue, talked like whore, S had huge eyes 2-3x maybe he’s not a switch?  Ok enough

 

_14\. Jan._

Too many ideas.  Still laughing re. Hype-tripe. S brought lunch at 1, didn’t see nurse.  Says army nurse = my fantasy & I sd, “yrs perhaps!” (Pink nose + cheeks, cute, ha!)

 

_15\. Jan._

Cerulean brick calls.  Drawings too.  Jens texted re. floor reflectors last night + asked re. me. Can't text 

Dreams -- Absalom. +1 OT theme.  I was Esther 1x.  Read the prophecies (Is. 40: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary.”

Wk in 1 month w/ Viking.  Pillage. 

OMG.  Should be shot.

 

_16\. Jan._

1/2 body languishing in unrequited love for hand whereas the 1/2 begs not to move another in. forward toward the desk.  Reason: no negotiator.  I need a visitor with beautiful lips.  This without codeine, ha & now S just texted that he's bringing dinner.  Lord help me. 

S brings sth daily, bless that crazy man.  Sometimes eat togeth. lunch/brunch, short but checks + interrog. re. Warfarin dose + stitches, necrosis fear?  Soups v. good & spelt noodles cook in 4 min.  Everything bad on stomach.  His & mine.  Claims I am testing (lab bunny w/ pink nose + red eyes) for evening meals.  Meaning J is getting a heart patient’s gruel w/ no salt now, ha!  Doubt it.  Brilliant groats/millet (Africa), Roobios red tea + honey.  Groats dry out phlegm build up in lungs & inflamm. processes acc. to Chinese med. he says.  Good, whatever helps.

Almost combed all hair, not back of head yet, hurts; cross arms & hold shoulders while coughing with no pillow painful as body declares something will shred open, not true, one must remember:  nerves and noth. will tear inside.  Fell asleep at table after lunch + pill, woken:  army nurse at door!  Not dreaming.

I write when reaching kitchen table from sofa.  As goal.

Pain greater than me w/out extra analgesic but not b/c of damage, only healing.  Can remember.  Helps a lot to think of that.  The internal itchiness of healing tissue, cold/hot shocks, like fever, adjustments.  Moods. 

I can read & write fine, eyes don’t flicker but attention drifts esp. now, e.g. at night.

 

_17\. Jan._

Abram called, nice to talk, arrangements stand.  My heartbeat is audible to nearly everyone near me, I told him.  He knows sb with a valve like that, divorce solicitor w/ awful jokes, &c.  We all have some ghastly med. jokes on hand.  I heard some new ones I shall not be employing!

Looking back the removal of drain was worst, I pretended -- “removing invasive snake from chest cavity” & started laughing + crying, dr. asked me / if referral to psychiatrist & I laughed more, army nurse perhaps psychiatric??  Oh hell  -- should check pills?  Ask S?  But when drain slips through tissue so wrong in feeling but relief to nerves after -- remarkable difference in minutes.  More gauze, orange seep (snake venom, ha).  Hair on arms bristly & feels nasty now + chest stubbly fur, bleh.  Bump at top of scarring, new, awful clicking when room is quiet.

If unnerved, turned on, or angry, everyone hears & if my behaviour is at odds?  Insincerity.  Not the first or last man to feel that, and there are plenty whose bodies betray them even more. Stop, Lexie.

Should be grateful, yet -- should one turn on music -- ?  Lord, I’ve no idea & they won’t even explain beyond ‘high risk' -- “if you bleed, it will be worse now, bruising, infections more dangerous”, etc. as if it were inevitable, one need bleed?  Hell. 

Drawing windows and practising glass surface reflection in pencil, ink.

S mentioned I had emergence delirium almost two days which is what anaesth. said, too when visiting after our "shared adventure" + 3 shocks:  "you didn't warm up to us," he said b/c warming didn't restart me.  "Your brothers were both by".  What must I have said!  Jens was by, then.

What he said was so sweet:  "You hid your heart but I hope you won't again.   Be open to me, I count on you to be open. And come back to me strong and ready for new things together." Something to that effect, I was so tired.

“Dr. No” -- for the relatively low number of kills as well as the Baccarat playing, S lent me J’s “Thunderball” today.  He says J & I read almost identical novels and made faces.  J reads Austen?  Who knows.  "That's how rumours get started!" (I hear Auntie C., now!)

Important that I do have my mind & can think clearly.  I can please someone else, there is that.  I wouldn’t mind.  There is no shame in being someone’s happiness.  

From "Thunderball":  "people are unsure of their own instincts.  They want reassurance.  So they ask someone else whether they should like a particular person or not.  And as the world loves bad news, they nearly always get a bad answer--or at least a qualified one".  Funny & true.


	19. Unwarranted emphasis on the 'log'

_18\. Jan._

Writing hurts far less, now.  Good pills, world at large. Fair warning.

As usual, I wake at about 8, stand and walk three times an hour to every room, register something in the kitchen in this book.  Thus I have a few lines every hour.  More daily.  Progress:  it has been two weeks and I have finally got through a day without losing my temper or crying. Bravo, Lexie.  Ech.

A walk outdoors would be lovely but S will not hear of it, because of the wind.  The nurse will not, either, and says that I should wait another week and go somewhere quiet for an hour or two, at the most.

Oh, and S still assumes I am confabulating my army nurse because I am unable to answer ‘essential questions’, like his ‘real’ name.  (His name is Sid, or Syd, Sidd, Sidde, Syddhe, Csyhddhe?) He is handsome, straight, very strong, respectful, absolutely professional. Enough for me.  So we have a standing joke that I have 2 nurses, one a figment of my “over-active, newly-oxgenated inner life” (sth else) and proof that I “really should be returning Jens’ phone calls”.  I have. There isn’t much to say:  my beautiful Swede overworks himself. (Change of personal circumstances?)  He does send charming texts.  It is enough to will one’s self to heal, or burn up spontaneously trying.  One must have external and internal reasons.

I have cut the letter to S out because, as I was mumbling to myself, I wasn’t in my right mind when I composed it.  Ha.  And I wouldn’t want him to see it, should he have the impulse to thumb through this again, like earlier today.  He dropped it back on the table like it had burnt him.  “Your catechism,” he said. “Dull!”  Perhaps his eye fell on one of the Psalms I wrote out?  Though he tends to imprint entire paragraphs at a time.  He has a key, I reminded him, he can come read it whenever he finds he cannot sleep, though I will also be there, snoring, as he claims I do  (he has never been brave enough to confirm).  He wouldn’t get past the first several sentences, and I’d find him curled up on the kitchen floor with it over his face like an ether-soaked cloth!  He laughed but I think he was humouring me on the last bit. 

He was in an odd mood.  Something is bothering him re. J though they have only just made their promises.  I hope J isn’t having second thoughts or adjusting himself in such a way that is making S so nervous, because something is not quite right, and he wears insecurity very badly.

I was looking for something to read, a blog I once liked but lost track of, presumably written by a student who was travelling and writing / illustrating some of his adventures & erotic exploits in comic style, with lovely, biting political humour and a smattering of chat-ups he had with locals, &c.  I could not find it again though I saw a number of others.  For starters, there is the ‘rimming diary’ (by a 'tongue wagging braggart' who claims to be a commercial traveller for a pharmaceutical firm).  One might peruse “White Collar Window Wanker” -- the confessions of a window washing voyeur who leaves ‘signatures’ on the very skyscrapers he is paid to clean.  There is the handyman’s appointment log with (unwarranted) emphasis on the ‘log’, and -- films.  Oh, Lord, the films.  The bored sounds they make!  I count myself fortunate that I’ve never heard anyone moan quite so mournfully and repetitively with me, as the heifers did in the countryside when they watched a fellow get strung up and gutted over a wheelbarrow, as I once saw as a child.  Those grunts are easier to listen to without the faces, because at least you don’t see that particular moment (I really dislike) when one of them is tired, and it doesn’t feel nice anymore.  The performance in it, then, all the effort in the final shot when the moment has been long lost.  Well.  More honestly:  I can either watch without sound, or shut my eyes and listen, if there is someone who sounds believable -- though how one finds *that* I cannot determine.  Mercy.  Ha!  Shall I ask S if he has any recommendations?  I shall.  He deserves it for having an upper lip like that.

Before these things were easy to find one resorted to writing or sketching out one’s own scenarios (fine -- I did, or tried to). When one had been left to one’s self, with so many unanswered questions and so much un-vented passion in one’s childish heart, a bit of a love triangle, like “The Secret Garden” with characters experiencing love & locked-garden pseudo-sex in their late teens, was havely. I had one from the point of view of a garden sparrow, another where I named the girl Colleen and the boy was Leonard.  I was Dorian, the one who pretended to be sickly & seduced them both, leaving notes and clues about what I wanted. My methods were unsophisticated and they were frightfully willing, as was Colleen’s lonely older guardian, who rarely came home from his business travels but would let me kiss him in the garden from time to time.  The descriptions themselves were based on ideas about sex taken from ancient art, plus the occasional dip into Anais Nin or D. H. Lawrence once I’d found them.  (Such linguistic forays as “he entered her and imagined stealing her soul from her rosy lips” -- ghastly!  I worked on that bit for days, which is why I remember it:  I could have carved it all into my skin, I thought it was so pretty!)  I fancied I was like Flaubert, slaving over every letter. I thus elevated the production of utter rubbish and wrote in my worst cursive, backward.  Good thing David was too involved in his own exploits to steal my books again.  I think I’d planned to read some of it to someone for fun, thankfully I did not.  Ultimately, the imagined bosom-friend Leonard stepped in to stop me pining for his increasingly-inattentive guardian, it was something along the lines of “and at last he placed both hands on him.”  How that sounded lovely:  a picnic in a neglected corner of a sprawling family estate modelled on the one lost by my Mum's great uncle, to massive speculation debts, shortly before David was born. It ended in embraces, kisses and some unspecified but somehow mutually satisfying petting by a lake with lilies and swans, the lot. Reclining on magically-appearing blankets. 

It still sounds lovely, in fact.  Is this really something I should be writing down?  No.  I have just spent the better part of two hours drifting & doing so, however.  I am trying not to watch films, particularly those, because I will not stand to come, not now.  And they are so hard to forget, some of them.  I suppose that it is more normal than I am, or the industry would not be what it is.  I shouldn't.  The scenarios which are always a bit off, the faces, the fantasy that does not entirely match my own but allows one to forget one’s self, one’s flaws, scars. The scarring is substantially wider than before and may well remain that way. Very red-pink at the moment and itchy as all hell but better by the day, let us not forget, I can breathe so deeply it hurts. 

The clock on the wall stopped five days ago and I cannot reach it yet.  I never remember to ask S about it, and surprisingly, he has not noticed it, and if he makes another ‘ticking’ remark I swear I will throw things, which I am not supposed to do, either, for at least another three weeks.  Furniture throwing will be allowable by late April / early May, perhaps.  So, then:  I am not precise about time-frames in these kitchen entries. 

Poor, dear Lorri.  The cancer has reached the kidneys.  Sophie skyped and her voice was so small, her face was tight and she hardly moved her mouth when she talked.  She spends most of her time in the clinics and it appears hospice is next.  Twice a week at her sister’s request she goes on scheduled “speed dates” to remind herself, she explained, that there are people with other problems, and to practice acting as though her world is not in continual disintegration, there is no pressure, and they do not call again, as they are flitting from person to person for their own reasons, too.  She suggested I do “speed dating” as well for men and as soon as she said it she started to laugh at herself, nearly as loudly as I was, already.  It hurt to laugh that long, but it is cleansing, very.


	20. Legs for leverage

_19\. Jan._

I should like to have another day, like yesterday, without feeling this, find its secret (my own secret) to stopping this. Make as many days tearless as possible.  It was better. I don’t know what to do when drawing makes me sadder though there is no reason behind it.  I meant to write ‘there is no reason for it to’ which is such poor form.  I want to sleep but I am not tired in the right way at the right moment to reach that state.  I don’t know what I was trying to write.  I can’t see. Why is this happening when yesterday was good.

 

_20\. Jan._

The nurse is due in an hour and a half and I am again less than presentable.  A smallish lump at top of site which does not seem to be going down.  Appointment tomorrow w/S to hosp.  The clicking.

S said I am euphoric from improved circ. & delusional about walking round the block & so won’t go with me today in lift, etc.  I showed him the brochures and he quoted them to me, knows them all, told me to come off it, one more week for walk that is not to doctor’s office. 

I warm the food at least once a day myself, the only complication being the dish-washing (I can reach forward for the tap on/off now but cannot scrub nor pick up a pot of water while rinsing yet so he does the worst of it, dear man) and if I happen to drop anything it must stay there.  Tiring. Clock has a battery, now.  16:11!  Will have to eat at five.  Groats beckon.  I have no appetite and it is literally upholding digestive function as eating is joyless when one is alone with this click-click-click-click.

I looked at two photographs of C today after dreams, nap late afternoon.  Singing to him to wake him up, except that he was underwater.  I need to stop so I don’t raise my pulse.  9 years.  When they go by under a particular motif they fly past, all similar, habit, custom, longing.  He said once that he loved me like he imagined older marriages love one another & fucked me & whispered everything again and again.  There are no films with that sort of sounds.  Is it any wonder I cannot bear to listen to them, when I know what I would want to hear, there.  The sound of his breath in my ear, turning my head to the side, to tell me in the other ear, smiling, fucking me, then biting my chin, he’d eaten quince jelly, that one night.  No, I can’t write this. 

It’s quite over for me.  The clicking is grisly & turns me off, even from myself, completely.  Repulsive!

 

_21\. Jan._

So, appt. routine, all OK, very tired, though when there I was praised for stamina. Must have Warfarin in spite of stomach issues (common). The incision site appears normal to the doctor, swelling included. I don't care for the way it feels to say nothing of its colour. Apparently the lump at the suprasternal notch is not only scar tissue and should "go down" gradually. Any tie or shirt would be irritating otherwise, ech. He praised the room-pacing routine I was reluctant to admit to, until S asked for confirmation about optimal frequency of walks, indoors and out, and mentioned what I was doing. ("Stay on your toes! Move every hour.") I pace about plenty every hour, to your peril, book. I can go out soon for brief visits. “The best thing would be to go see family members!”  I agreed. In fact, it would be, as there are no flowers, now. (S growled to himself later, “Idiot, clearly has 4 siblings with whom he does not get on, &c.” More news: I can have aided baths, now.  “Oh, that's good, at last,” I nodded, as though I'd been holding off hordes, all casting lots in order to bathe my bony arse.  S's neck was pink, so sweet!  The Dr. thought he was my partner from moment one and went forth:  “So whenever you assist Alex in the bath, don’t pull him up by the arms, by any means, but support him around the waist, or encircle his hips as he uses his legs for leverage.”  "Mm, that sounds easy enough, doesn't it," I added. S would not even look my way, OMG, I was d-y-ing. 

“So now what? We use our legs for leverage or we get a cab, dear?” I asked him in the street, and he snorted and told me to shut up, he knows when to bring in leverage, thank you very much. He is quite good at hailing cabs, fortunately, as I still cannot raise my arms above shoulder-height without wanting to scream.  That said, I cannot wait to get out again. Lord, the baths, the leverage. Oxygenation, I know. 

 

_22\. Jan._

Today better after last night, which was quite awful.  Nightmares of falling and sudden movement when waking, pain and cold.

_24\. Jan._

S came to borrow clothing of all things, to go undercover and look “foppish”, which he manages well without my help, I tried to explain.  I suppose he enjoyed digging about in my wardrobe & what I have of my uncle’s things, but chose one of Auntie Claudia’s scarves (one of the two silk Hermes pieces I still have of hers) to tuck in his (my) jacket.  I’m not making sense, lack of sleep.  He is angry about pending publication of photos, J and Kadi Perkins, one in which J changed shirts at her house, though I don’t doubt there is a good reason.  J is not the sort to play about, not at this stage.  What sort of lout could do so, now, if he initiated the rings, himself?  A misunderstanding, of course.  S touchy and I would even venture to say jealous.  Why he would have need of envy toward anyone is a mystery, unless he is losing his way for another reason.  I still have the impression he is more ill than he lets on, his choice of diet.

 

_27\. Jan._

14:40     S is in Manchester, J says, and I have got to do something, see things.  I was a moment away from an imposition and a half -- asking him to accompany me to the library.  A cab ride, somewhere quiet, read something new, think about something new.  It’s a new year.  It’s been years since I could breathe so much at once.  Brilliant!  The pain worst when I unthinkingly reach out for an object too far, &c can't do so.

No, scratch that. Sneezing is far worse.

Jens hasn’t answered though it would be nice to know which of the documents he has worked on from the collection at the Glen Burns.  He might talk me through them.  I spoke to the army nurse re. my plan to go out (now that I’m not swooning about) to the club to read.  He said many patients shop too soon & tire themselves manoeuvring in crowded places, lifting things from shelves & needlessly exposing themselves to colds -- “They choose to consume. It's self-gratification for pulling through, they want to be part of the real world again, what better way?” and much more, his longest reply perhaps ever.  Mostly-silent and official chap.  I drew his portrait as a gift for his wife. His last day helping me today, he said.  My first finished work of any kind when I can think properly, and certainly a difference to be felt in my focus.  I yawn far less, as well.  Fortunately. It still hurts to. 

I will go out tomorrow, mid-morning.  I can't wait, I hope I'll sleep. Centre-of-inertia, sofa, trap, pedestal, enough of this counting the life-functions.  One can go mad focusing on one’s arm length, steps, breathing, coughing, clotting, urinating, trembling, shitting, clicking, sulkiness!  I want to see things!

 

_28\. Jan._

True to the above, I have gone out & seen things.  And, I’ve also met S’s brother, M.  The remarks & the things to remark upon.  His measured yet unfathomable replies, each paradoxical and careful, those eyes of his and what I have set in motion, through my inability to turn away when I might have! And there are now reasons to consider those words, as I proved careless at the club.   Weakness!

But for now I need sleep as the pain is rather persistent between the shoulder blades. I have been dizzy all day, perhaps because of gusts outdoors and a bit of sun, together. And all the stairs at the club, ha. I did them all. 

20:02   I don’t know why I am this angry, but I truly am.  I have ended up in this kitchen four times.  How many glasses of water can someone pour and forget to drink, Lexie!

21:15   I cannot rest despite intense physical tiredness.  My legs ache, from those stairs, perhaps. It was magic to get out a bit.  One gauges one’s progress and processes so much differently, among people.  One is less nostalgic, then, too, remembering more easily that we all carry things.  Yet, having encountered M, I feel that my intuitions are akin to superstition and tell me nothing!!!  Many easily linked to particular people in my limited experience in this life.  

He has puzzled me greatly.  


	21. On my guard

_29\. Jan._

I cannot sleep any longer, so we’re starting in.  At.  Six in the morning!  I cannot remember the last time I woke spontaneously at such an hour. 

I have been alone for too long.  I was curious & eager for conversation.  I might have held off!!!  Foolishness!!!

He initiated that eye contact, in fact stared me down until I acknowledged it verbally.  I ought to have resisted longer, shown some distaste, or indifference. I might have left the library altogether but 1) there was no reason I should feel obliged to leave, and 2) I would not have managed to take all the stairs back down so soon. I was a bit marooned.  

I excuse myself this way, now, but I should not have spoken first.  Or rather I had to, because of the age -- Lord, I've no idea what I am writing.

This could be the man who has, in part, made S what he is:  insecure wherever logic breaks off and matters become individual, open for assessment.  He shuts off, chat over.  It’s not like I don’t know what bright and narcissistic older brothers do for one’s self-perception.  They don’t get on, that much S has made known.  I’ve felt the man more than heard of him.  What else.  Ten years my elder & seven years S’s, the 12th of Nov. thus Scorpio like me -- S was going to see him after he picked me up from Heathrow, 50th b-d the day before, spent in Oxford.  No clear resemblance to S aside from mannerisms (animated when he chooses) but with presence.  Ginger, pale & freckled where S is not.  An oldish but pretty umbrella. He was well-dressed.  His watch chain was older than my own watch and cuff buttons, certainly.  He had a gold ring on his right hand, a widower.  Manicured hands, and an excellent haircut that flattered the broad forehead.  

Back in this kitchen.  What else.  An intense gaze I cannot forget, like he’d made a study of every sharp thing on earth and then remembered them all at once.  As cliché as that reads, I'm not certain how else to describe the way he looked, when he started talking. He immediately addressed me by name: "On the mend, Mr. Nussbaum." Factual enough. How could he know my name, straight away? Who announced me? Mr. Collingwood? Or through S, I suppose. And granted, I don't look myself. S may have mentioned things. Then: "The delay was dangerous. Curious. You admire risk-takers, for adrenaline by proxy" -- something to that effect. OMG, dear volume, consider how much a person would have to know of me to say such things, unless it was chance, in the way of horoscopes? Granted, S criticised my hesitation about setting a date for this valve -- on reflection, too long but the fear was real. How should he know I admire S, or has he assumed so, after what was in the press, over the ring, &c? "Prudent, given your family history.” Could he know my family?  Plausible. Put together, could he possibly know, through S, how I lost Mum?  Is that seeming as one's means of introduction?  Shocking.  The pointed blankness that followed just afterward, when he listened, like an agent would, did nothing to lighten the mood.  S can do that, too, if he feels like it, but this was deeper in nature.  When S goes cold you can see he puts his heart behind it, which is exactly what makes it scary to watch.  But with M, there was nothing beyond what I felt was a colossal intellect, not meant to be accessed, by me.  And, since you can’t interact, you stand there:  the idiot, by default, as he observes you.  Not my favourite role to play, the idiot, and I admit it got a rise out of me, particularly the way he referred to my job, that I am "hardly" a draughtsman, and then to S -- “you’ve endured my brother”.  Rude, uncharitable remarks, to a complete stranger?  Oddly goading.  And about his own brother? When I said one needn’t “endure” S, he said, “Where does he find you people?” I asked with whom I had just been generalised and he waved it aside.  I might have pursued that point!  People?  J?  The DI, who seems intimidated by them both (now that I think of it)?  As if that were a step down, honestly?  

When I lied about my lack of knowledge, he said, far too knowingly for my taste, “if that is your preferred pose” -- yes, sir: on my guard. He said nearly everything knowingly. And it’s not as though my point of view is superior to that man’s own, given his job and connections, if he does monitor or photograph people as J said he does.  What was the game?  I cannot entirely understand it, as I told him.  He didn't seem the sort that feels the need to give up that calm and explain.  

So we have established that I may have been overly forward, setting myself in line for the inquiries re. passing on information about J and S (“changes in their relationship”) which he anticipates seeing in coming times.  Why should he of all people anticipate that, and tell me about it? That he would want to recruit me in such an offhanded manner, without knowing me personally but while hinting he knows all sorts of things about me, points to a certain inconsistency -- his knowledge concerning one Nussbaum should include enough profiling to preclude asking for such favours!  Against my dearest friend, his brother, no less.  It makes no sense!  

It is a bluff.  It must be.  What for?  To intimidate S through me, as he must know I'll tell him?  A waste of effort, when there are better ways, good sir -- one must merely affect things in relation to Dr. JW!  If M wants to pull them apart in some way, using me -- well.  I can tell him what I think of that, should the matter come up again.  I should speak to S about all of this once he is back.

 

_30\. Jan._

I am still bothered.  More so than yesterday, in all honesty.  Perhaps it is the pills. Nerves.  I miss the army nurse, a touchstone of sorts, on reality, where I could ask things, eat with someone, break up the day a bit.

Crucial point -- why was M *there* at the Glen Burns if he has his own club, and precisely then?  Upstairs?  There was nobody else there, and he was not studying or reading.

I would swear he was waiting for me in particular, making that a deliberate set-up for one.  That’s how it felt, more than a shade of Vor dem Gesetz, though that is absurd, even impossible:  I went up on impulse to see the treasure maps; therefore, how could he have got up there before me, on the same staircase, quickly enough to have settled in a chair?  I didn’t notice him in the reading room.  The pills?  No, he was distinguished enough I'd not have missed him.

What he said about my fascination with danger by proxy, has stuck with me.  Could S have told him about me, for some reason?  I suppose he might have.  It’s absolutely true, embarrassingly enough.  I adore a bit of badness, it’s silly, we’ve done the counselling bit, have we not. 

I needn’t have enumerated the other Diogenes but I was damned bothered, and I daresay I’d begun channelling dear Eustace, who adored picking at cynics.  And M seems to have as many aspects, in fact.  Sinope being only one.  There is also D. Laertius, historian.

I MUST sleep.  Enough.

 

_31\. Jan._

Sore throat for all the wrong reasons:  snoring (I must), singing and crying in turns.  I know now which side effects:  my hair is still strongly rooted, my hands are steady.  Memory fine.  But.  My stomach hurts and gurgles constantly and I have no emotional buffer, whatsoever, not that it was ever so thick.  And nothing interests me enough, there.  Either.  So.  Nothing works on me right now. 

No, I can’t do a lunch date tomorrow, I simply have nothing to say, of any merit, though I suppose I can listen, I shall be brilliant at listening.  I go back to drafting part-time in two weeks!!!

Is this what we’ve been fighting for?

The vanity in that.  Perhaps there is a reason -- I am blind and deaf to the Lord.  I want this to stop before I do something to myself that HE cannot forgive and I do mean it, I must see Mum again, in spite of it all.

“I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me. I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from good; and my sorrow was stirred. My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue, Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.  Behold, thou hast made my days as an hand-breadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity.  Selah.  Surely every man walketh in a vain shew:  surely they are disquieted in vain:  he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.  And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee.”  Psalm 39:1-7.

One of the most beautiful things, ever.  I am vain and silly.  But it hurts at night!

I will ask S what his take is on things, and tell him the truth about what M asked me for.  He will know better how to interpret it.  I don't think I've understood a thing.


	22. Put in one's way

_02\. Feb_. 

S back from Manchester.  It was a rather emotional morning.  He wanted to start watercolouring again so I sat on the sofa and directed while he snarled at several bits of paper, brush in hand.  Well, in a word:  as much as he appreciates J’s Christmas present he is not patient enough with himself to learn techniques.  I think he is better at colourising, and might stick to drybrushing pencil and rapidograf sketches, where there is at least a clearer line.  In spite of all that growling of his, and of my gut, it was lovely to talk rubbish -- even if it pertained to my septum or whatever.  He was annoyed when I admitted I’d gone to the Glen Burns, alone.  I’ve been so bored, I told him, with my damned narrow universe between sofa, toilet, bed & kitchen.  Banisters, etc.  yes, yes, I realise, I was pushing things.  But I went slowly & some go out and shop first, even pushing a trolley, as Sid had affirmed, I explained, and S reminded me that once we'd eliminated X/Y it had appeared there'd been NO nurse named Sid.  

I’d no energy to argue for the existence of a man twice my girth and had been bursting to ask what his brother might have up his sleeve, aside from himself. I daresay speaking to S is calming after thinking of M for these past days. That man is leaden, a mass, as they describe distant white dwarf stars!  Oh dear.  Waxing idiotic. But he is!

So, I told S we’d met at the Glen Burns.  In response, a clear lack of enthusiasm.  And S expressed his surprise that M hadn’t resorted to “extortion” of information as though our conversation could only have been a one-sided affront.  Instantly wound up, glaring at me, daring me to misspeak.  I hardly got to explain that M had mentioned my family, that he'd appeared well-informed -- S had likely told him some things about me, so why the anger? I tried to ask if M has interfered in his relationships before.  Apparently he has.  Perhaps that is the source of anger, here?  I admitted that I found M 'absorbing'.  I do.  S was not pleased.  It escalated when I mentioned that his and J’s relationship had been under discussion -- yet hardly reacted when I said I would like to speak to M again.   Idiot?  Ignorant?  Granted, dear:  because you won’t tell me a thing!  It appears that once again I have to use S's very methods to understand him -- par for the course, whenever he does not feel up to listening to himself say certain things aloud!  He might come out with it --  ‘I don’t like my brother, he is cold, he is like an evil quartermaster’, whatever!  He became secretive, wouldn’t speak aloud in the room.  I think his nerves are taxed, he was rather irrational.  I understand that something is off but since I was put in such a position, partially because of my own silliness, I will finish it.  On my terms.  He changed his tone and reminded me that I have no idea who I am dealing with & told me, among other pleasantries, that his brother is "the most dangerous man in England".  Well, I often felt that way about David, too.

I’m avoiding the obvious.  S looked so unhappy, telling me in a whisper that I didn't know what I was saying, that it wasn't a Bond novel.  The way he swallowed so loudly when I told him that "upcoming changes" in his relationship with J had been mentioned.  He wouldn't stand any games over J & none should ever be played, it would hurt him too much. Just then I was so tired of holding back, life is so bloody short!  In fact, if people had not held so much back from him!  Imagine how much happier he would be.  Yes, I kissed his cheek, I am not sorry in the least.  He needed it. And coffee. No, book, I will not let anything happen; I am not a game piece to anyone.

I know now where I might begin.  I shall visit the Diogenes to read, and I will leave a note for M while I am there. We will sort this -- I shall make clear my position on J and S and be done with it.  I have settled on the wording of a card for him, as follows:  

Sir, I remain puzzled at the temerity in your assumption that I may be a source of facts about your brother and the status of his relationship to Dr. JW.  A moment's reflection would have revealed that any opinion of mine on the issues to which you alluded could not possibly clarify but only confuse the very things you wish to understand better.  (Signed, &c)

I regret I cannot consult it with anyone -- one would not like to err, here.

22:07     I am beginning to feel a certain lack of texts, just saying.

 

_04\. Feb._

The Diogenes is a pleasant club, though I can see why S wouldn’t care for it, as he needs an audience and open space for his noisy sighs and mumblings.  Those are not allowed!  Ha!  It is deathly quiet there, with each man trying to out-do the others in turning his pages in the most silent manner. Nobody aside from me had chosen corduroy, either.  My valve hammered forth to keep the company of dear Henry's watch.  Well.  The lighting was soft and the leather chairs were pleasant, indeed, set at angles for optimised avoidance of eye-contact.  Amusing & I'd not have noticed it if S hadn't pointed out the club's designated purpose: an oasis for the introverted gentleman-of-standing. There were attendants in afternoon dress and white gloves who were serving refreshments at intervals & they seemed to know each gentleman's preferences, as no words or notes were being exchanged.  As I was apparently the only non-regular, I had to leave a card with someone and wait several minutes to be shown to a chair. The same attendant brought me a note a half hour later with an invitation from S's brother, for tea, on site.  Frankly, it hadn't occurred to me that he would be in, if he is indeed what S (doesn't say he is).  I reflected on how best to send in the message I’d brought along in my jacket pocket, though as a response to his invitation it would have been deeply inconsiderate.  Thus I accepted, my purpose clear in my head -- until I was shown in, at the top of the hour, to his office (high windows, tastefully spare in furnishings, with minimal distractions) and my mind seemed to turn to sand.  I don't know what came over me but I was quite useless. 

He asked directly why I'd come and I responded that I'd wanted to read without interruption, which was true but not terribly kind, since that particular "interruption" was becoming more interesting by the minute.  I tried to explain that I wasn't bothered by the invitation, merely surprised to have found him there.  I was struck by a portrait of Her Majesty, behind him -- the early Annigoni.  It is telling when one hangs a portrait behind himself -- as it turned out, it was his own work.  So he paints, quite well.  He must have put days of effort into it.  I say so because the technique was good, though it was obvious he’d not had the benefit of glaze paints & had gone to the needless trouble of mixing skin tones with clear medium and layering them.  A present for their father.  

I'd wanted to talk about the matter of J & S, though he didn’t give me much of a chance. Over tea, an excellent oolong, he began describing some issues in the balance of power and militants in the Caucasus Mountains, and I could find no delicate way to break in and change the subject.

It was dizzying to listen to him.  He is a genius, of a calibre I've not seen before & quite possibly the most brilliant person I have ever spoken to (there have been some impressive forerunners, not the least of them being his own brother, of course).  In response, my stomach started to growl, either from the exertion of following along or the tea (which was superb).  Or just nerves, and these pills.  I could hardly keep up with all the topics in play & I have no idea why he kept me there for that long, today.  I must bore him to death but he did not let me feel it, so he is polite, certainly.  

Because of his kind invitation, the matter on this card must be stated in person another day, when I am in better form.

 

_06\. Feb._

I have decided that the next time I go to the Glen Burns I will be accompanied. Call it a habit from the parties of my youth.  But as we see, dear volume, I should not be left to my own introductions.  My imprudence! I still have an outstanding obligation to discuss the matter of "informing" M, regarding S & J.

This afternoon, further to such poor judgement, to the Diogenes once more, to finish the Heute und Morgen.  An obscure title here at home, admittedly pleasing to find among other very good Continental periodicals.  Perhaps I will not be interrupted this time & can leave a card I have re-written. 

17:55     The coughs.  Lord!  They leave my mouth watering with nausea.  So it was, there.  The residual scent of vanilla tobacco hit the back of my throat and I choked.  It was very bad, because it was not the preventative sort of coughing we do but completely uncontrolled, for the first time since the surgery.  An attendant approached as I was leaving the reading room, for the benefit of the others in the room, as I could not hope to walk out quickly enough & he seemed to know he could not lead me by the arm and held my waist to hurry me across the length of the carpet.  Nobody looked up, fortunately -- I was near tears from the pain.  He brought me to the soundproofed areas, near MH’s office, to recover.  The man was in, again, and opened the door about when I finished.  It was absurd, me with eyes streaming, buttressed next to the door frame. He walked back to his desk while glancing down at a report in a file, with a photograph, and then back at me.  Still breathing, indeed.  He remarked that since I am between doses of pain medicine I might take his car home and rest & also to take the monthly I still had in my hand.  Return it another day.  I was in no state to refuse & thanked him.  “And what are you reading, sir?” I should not have asked -- of course, nothing I would know a thing about, or classified, Lord knows what I was playing at.  It hurt, and I needed to think of something else.  He looked at me so heavily, the way one stares to draw a man in, yet with no real need for my presence in it.  “Close the door behind yourself, carefully.”  “Sorry?” I asked, because I thought he was dismissing me.  He sniffed a bit and raised an eyebrow, exactly like S does just before he rolls his eyes.  “If you’re coming in, Mr. Nussbaum.  Close the door behind yourself carefully,” he clarified.  I was staring back, I realised just then.  And I’d basically invited myself in for a chat I was wholly unprepared for physically, mentally, and substantively -- as is becoming the norm. Norm!  (The door was heavy, admittedly.)  “It concerns these,” he said, and he held up a satellite photograph, showing eleven lorry-like vehicles.  “Supplies, humanitarian aid?” I suggested.  He shook his head at me.  “Brought within three miles of heavy fighting, in the night, with a strong, east wind?  Crematoria on wheels,” he said.  Honestly, I’d never heard of such a horrid thing.  “To destroy evidence, apparently,” I said, “so it’s more important to determine why so many of them have been brought at once?”  “Sit down, Mr. Nussbaum.”  “No, thank you.”  (Adrenaline.  He brings this out.)  “Your thoughts?”  “Every dead or wounded soldier’s body is a story, Mr. Holmes, regarding trajectories, weapon types, biological traces, chemicals, and that sort of thing...blah blah.”  (S has taught me to consider these things, honestly!)  “Or?” M asked, and made a sort of face, not quite impatient, more probing than anything else.  “Hiding evidence of civilian casualties, victims of rape and covering up other war crimes, or removing politically inconvenient individuals at a local level,” I said.  We chatted about that briefly.  Then he sort of nodded abstractedly and replied, “My car is in front of the building, now.”  I thanked him again and got out but nearly had a breakdown in the car.  That driver must think I am hopeless but he is too professional to let on.

"You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day." (Psalm 91:5)  Why do people fight?  Why are these wars so atrocious!  It's so horrible.

Mercy, I am tired tonight.  Rain in the forecast -- I will not go out tomorrow, after all.  Carrying an umbrella steadily:  another several weeks, at least.


	23. Not the Hor

_07\. Feb._

Re-reading "Catch-22" for perhaps the sixth time. Yossarian is just hilarious. It brought to mind that J once said M’s a megalomaniac due to his surveillance capabilities.  Hyperbole, as it does not appear to be a defence mechanism of M's, and I see no signs of delusion, as per clinical cases.  That is in his line of work.  I think.  I'm still mulling over yesterday, dear volume, and I haven’t yet surmised what he does.  Intelligence, without field work?  Consulting analyst?  Maybe, like S, he has a profession of his own invention.  But who hires such people, and gives them national secrets?  Satellite photographs of militants' positions in remote Caucasus outposts?  They seemed current & genuine. There were reports from HM's Treasury, letters of invitation with gilt or coloured crested headings (a stack of which he has arranged like a fan at his left hand, without postmarks). And one nearly empty tumbler of cognac or something similar.  Good breeding, however. He is comfortably himself, with superior manners appropriate to his age & (status) which speak of a strong sense of consequence that could easily be taken for snobbery. For all of his apparent personal discipline, he doesn't emanate 'military' at all. A researcher?  Historian, linguist, writer?  Going by his measured speech, a lecturer?  Of what, for whom?  Another matter:  would such knowledge be compensated for in financial terms, or power?  

This morning, I had a funny thought:  I imagined myself drinking tea with him again, in those lovely little hunter green cups of his with the blood-thirsty hounds on the sides:  “If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?  All right then, let me see.  Next question, quickly -- when did you last cry in front of another person?  And by yourself?  And do you have a secret hunch about how you will die, Mr. Holmes?”  And I started to laugh aloud, really.  I can hear him:  “What *is* relevant, Mr. Nussbaum -- that in suburban Paris there've been 2 incidents of ankle-fracturing, associated with floorboard production in Siberia, as well as the latest changes in high-heeled shoe design. Rubber taps from Algeria.”  I shouldn't make fun, nor should I read clothing blogs.  I'm incurable, anyhow, and default toward sixties dandy from a Continental film unless I dress in some of Henry's things.  Ha!

Still bothered.  At the very least, there shall be no “36 Q’s” should M and I ever try to know one another better.  The emphasis on “one another”, as he seems to know me, eerily well.  I remain as ignorant as ever.  I feel I should catch up, somehow, but there's little hope of that.  Come to think of it, his knowledge cannot be by way of deduction alone -- S would not get so far.  Might he have researched me, somehow?  He has better things to do with his time, surely & I'm flattering myself, at best.  I am no outpost militant.

So, I’m about to go out for a coffee with Jens and instead I am writing about S’s brother on and off all morning.  I will make myself late over it.

Update to that bit.  I won’t be late, he’s cancelled.  A sudden change of plans. 

Why did he even bother then, with all that texting this morning?

 

_09\. Feb._

I can’t do this.  Pavilion in Beijing.  Lord help me, I have never designed an interior outside of several exercises in Berlin.  I believe that is SOMEONE ELSE’S FUCKING AREA.  

I made a complete arse of myself but there was no chance to stop it.  As it went. It started with an onslaught of awful facts, none I could accept.  Personal things and about Jens. That, with the pain of breathing deeply, was too much.

For starters, I told M I should appreciate it if he does not send a car for me when I am out walking on my own.  He did do so. May I restate that. He sent a car for me while I was out and it was unnerving, as I explained, to have someone pull up to the pavement and ask me in, when I had not been prepared to go anywhere else much less talk to anyone.  "At the request of Mr. Holmes." It was irregular, I wanted him to know. And I might have brought along his "Heute und Morgen”, had I known.  He shuttered up and said he shall not, in that case, and that he will easily replace the periodical.  We had tea & he told me several things, I lost my composure completely, like an idiot and a half. Imagine, in front of such a person. I ought to have asked his leave, and gone home where I belong. Pathetic!  

Impossible that this should be true. Is this happening?  I'd very much like to believe it is not. Moreover, I want to believe all of our chats are an extension of a bluff or misunderstanding, which I might finish gracefully. But I am deluding myself. There is nothing casual in these meetings of ours, anymore. Let us consider why. 1) There is no objective reason he should have told me any of what he has. He doesn’t know me, nor does he know how I planned to work -- or does he? How? S, or by listening to S and me? 2) How in hell should he have inferred I’ve had feelings invested in things & in Jens? I've no reason to believe what M has said about Jens, yet one immediately feels the potential truth in it.  3) Why would he present a lie that can be checked so easily, about *my* circle of acquaintances?  

MH scares me.  Honestly.  However, when I was unable to carry on talking, he gave me the use of his car so I wouldn’t need to find a cab in the rain, & it was a relief.  So his driver really never sees me in my normal state!  To hell with this all.

I am so furious, I can't even. Walls of glass indeed.  Sluttish opportunism! If Jens has chosen H, that is -- if M is right, and my intuition is shouting in my head that he is, however bizarre that would be.  Then again, S wouldn’t behave the way he does if M were not capable of knowing things like that.  OMG, what is this even turning into.

I will call Julie in the morning & see what Mr. Holmes’ story looks like from within the firm.

But the implications if he is right.  Oh, Lord.  I shall not watch this happen, no.

Expo.  Nine million visitors, Gracious Peter, this is so much.

Research into ancient Chinese technologies surrounding the subject of water, first of all, look for something universal in it, of beauty.  I want to cover every surface in this room with blood. 

My head feels like Bosch’s hell come to life, I am my own hell, tonight.  Not only tonight.  I believe I am not suited to this life in the ways that seem to come to others so easily -- merely putting out one’s hand and grasping at what one finds attractive.  I am not forward enough when it matters and never have been. But one cannot throw one’s self about, no matter how lovely the landing, it's not those times, is it. Hell! Enough.

 

_10\. Feb._

Me:  Is Jens in?

Julie:  Oh whoa, almost 11, isn’t it!

Me:  Yes.  Is he in?

Julie:  How long does a lie-in last, usually.  I mean...!

I said something like it depended on the circumstances of the lie-in.  Flu, and so on.

Julie:  A lie-in with Horatio, honeypie!  Those last until siesta!  I don’t expect them in, luv, sorries.

I thanked her. I spoke to L and he said something similar.  Hot new whatever, he said.  Corroboration enough.  Not sure I want to hear another word from anyone today. 

Have I any right to be so angry, in fact?  There’s no entitlement, is there!  There is not, yet I could have thrown this table over a hundred times today -- over someone who is not mine. Slow, dull, ill, fuck! I can’t throw this table over until late April!!!  Leverage with the legs?!    

I need my pen and I cannot simply call S to come get it out from under my desk.  I am so angry it is quite indescribable. 

14:30     There’s more.  It has been exactly two months now since S found C’s contact information.  His 43rd is tomorrow.  S is right, though, he’d have given a signal of some sort if he wanted things. Any things.  I would have to turn on the camera.  Who would want this!  Nobody!  Clear enough.

16:50     I won’t call.  Like Sid said:  patients often have the need for self-gratification after pulling through.  Perhaps this is no different, a need for placation, pathetic!  Not that one can really pat another on the back for his having responded to three shocks. 

19:45     Mercy, I am so fortunate!  If I could keep that in mind!  I wish S were here.  His perspectives.

I am not “the Hor”.  I can’t blame any man for succumbing when a talented someone shakes his arse about and I don’t even want to imagine what he must have said, the key he found into Jens’ senses.

S is abroad & without his phone or I'd gladly talk, at least to hear a rational person's voice. I can’t stop this and I’ve a job to do. 

 

_11\. Feb._

Back in the kitchen for another round, today.  Yes.  I suppose I fancied myself worth a certain process, which he may never have perceived I wanted, now that I look at it more carefully.  My interest may have been one-sided, or unapparent?  Not every man is a mind reader!  Easy to forget that, with S.  Or M, for that matter.  A similar thing.  Genetic ability to read others before they even act or forget to act. Or are too pathetic to act instead of going in for another round of over-thinking!  How is it that my over-thinking is of so little avail, like a slope in a constant arc that curls upward in front. That was incoherent, I realise. You are too pretty to be putting up with this, volume. The world moves at another pace; I am not bright enough for any of these people -- I don’t even know what I am trying to express, so how should anyone else! I must walk this off but I can’t go out this way, I look and feel frightful and I don’t trust myself to come back home. There, I said it. Whatever might have come about, whenever, yes. Presumptive, but one has his pride, hopes, needs. Lord, the needs.

Above all, I wanted time but I didn’t explicitly ask for it, such a mistake, after not telling him I’d be having this valve. All of this: who’d stand it! Foolish, all round, to imagine someone would want this.  

14:20     Boring, slow, fading.  Of talents which are sporadically of interest, to some, when better choices are unavailable.  Ironic that now I have legitimate work to complete and no time whatsoever to wallow!  Perhaps the recent studies of glass surfaces are about to become useful. HELL!!! 

17:10     Glass walls, indeed.  I despise them for the paradox of a transparent boundary.  Enough, enough, enough!!!

18:35     To hell with glass boundaries!  The glass shall hold my artwork, which will be plastered over it! Blast them!

 

4/4/4/4/4/4/4/4/4/4

So he shall dream:

his noisy heart

a heavy stone

he won’t pick up

nor carry far:

he cannot stop

it for too long;

 ~~he'll~~ nor bring it to

the swollen Thames,

for his Carly.

 

_12\. Feb._

S & J home.

It seems I shall not be plucked off the pavement for tea this week, as I received an invitation at 9 this morning, when I'd just finished breakfast, hand-delivered by M’s driver (-- his name is Rodney, I found out) to meet tomorrow for tea.  Presumably to discuss pavilion designs.  Handwritten. Perhaps it was done this way in response to my protest over his skyjack-method of invitation at the end of my street, last time.  But I don't believe he is being sardonic -- it is an older protocol, and pettiness is rarely if ever expressed so elegantly -- in fact, it was lettered with more care than many put into their wedding stationery, nowadays.  I'd have kept it for the calligraphy.  But one responds in this case on the reverse side (Grandmother still did) so I asked that ever-patient driver in.  Of course he shook his head politely and stood outside the door and waited for me to compose an answer, alone.  I brought out a dip pen that I begged off of S once (the reason is quite irrelevant, now).  M will know by now the type by the width of the nib and its characteristic scrape (oldish, for drawing, not writing) and will have deduced that I couldn’t locate my good pen.  In fact, its location is all too well known:  it rolled behind my desk to join my favourite metal 0.7 pencil and will take quite a bit of manoeuvring with a broom, by not-me, to rescue it.  I wrote in the same burgundy ink that Neil G. uses, I’ve read recently.  It's pretty and looks a bit like dried blood though colder in tone.  It's what I had out, from refilling, for writing this journal, in fact!  Lovely mixed with a bit of blue.  Dipped four times.  He will have seen that, as well.  It's a challenge to interact with that degree of perceptive attention, if that makes sense. No sense in over-thinking, around someone like that! 

“Mr. Alexander Nussbaum thanks Mr. Mycroft Holmes for the invitation to tea tomorrow, at 4 o'clock on the 13th of February, at the Diogenes Gentlemen’s Club, and is delighted to accept”. 

Delighted?  Ambiguous & traditional, that's me.  Should I have been blunt:  “and is astounded at his own willingness to indulge a growing interest in your person”?  

Mill finished & second cut-away.  Will colourise remaining elements later on after sleep.

18:25   I could have contacted C yesterday.  I might have done.  There is something of his kisses in a stream of warm water -- the last thing I thought before my nap today. The dreams.  Gracious Mother, the dreams.  The way he kissed, his shadow on the wall, and mine, watching him stroke us both, how the angle of light exaggerated it all, just before, waiting. How many times I have remembered those shadows of ours, turning my head to see him smile and knowing that in a moment he will be mine.

20:55   I will never.  It won't happen for me.  I can't bring myself off, even to sleep better.  The empty-afterward in it is too much.  Perhaps it's time to consider giving up things.  The likelihood of meeting one's match when one is increasingly misaligned inside?  There we are, again.  Too much of this.  This is becoming depressive & not cathartic in nature.  I might throw more rocks against the glass in my head, for starters. Now or never, because nobody will do it for me, will they.


	24. Sweet

_13\. Feb._

After several odd dreams, I called Sir Károly Simko-Vágner, only to hear from his housekeeper that he is recovering from pneumonia and too frail to speak to me.  Naturally I shouldn’t expose myself by going there any time soon but I would like much to see him again.  I’ve started a card for him but for now I should be focusing on colourising, of course.  Incessant singing to very good music -- fortunately (this time) Mrs. Kirchner next door is hard of hearing, as I have pulled out all of David’s and my older Genesis and Pink Floyd and even found a Bauhaus cassette I’d forgotten I had.  My throat hurts but I am not out of breath.  I suppose I don’t talk much. 

S came to see me.  He had a thermos with a salt-free goulash, some slices of a heavy rye bread, and a small carton of horse milk, of all things.  Sweet and apparently easily digested and nutritious. That was very kind of him though I was happiest to have someone rational in the room, if we are honest.  Of course I had to explain why I looked the way I did -- after three days I start showing my ginger side, and this time, it appeared partly grey, as well, on the chin.  (S dislikes facial hair enough that it’s probably meaningful.)  He insisted on shaving my face, which I could only take for a need to practice slicing a man’s neck open though he's quite the expert with a straight razor, undercover as barber!? and he combed this hair of mine, which is going more and more wild, now, around the ears.  Back & sternum rebelling (cues from stomach) from sitting so long (-er than I have been) and my hands wouldn’t be steady enough this morning, which he doubtlessly inferred from me dropping my pen first thing, which I cannot readily pick up. 

He was visibly puzzled re. Jens but attributed that to being on the rebound from mad-ex-Peter --?  Seriously?  One needn’t be on the rebound to find H. attractive.  He is. However, he is also flamboyant, which I dislike.  Hate.  Okay, there.  And when I mentioned in passing about M & those lime biscuits!  Gracious Mother, you never know what will set S off -- it turns out the brothers have a long-running conflict over sweets, of all things & I don’t doubt many other areas have similar histories.  David & I had them over lent/not-lent objects, books, and certain family members.  S’s World War of Sweets tales were quite hilarious but laughing that much was not terribly pleasant, with the pain and the straight blade near an artery, but the vacations OMG and all the circumstances when M wasn’t sharing his treats with the little one!  The moral?  Brother M does nooooot share.  Oh, S.  I should find him some flossed halva with rose scent.  Liked the motif of the watermill, at least.  I am now dressed (I’d not have chosen a thing -- fashion sense goes out the window first, always has, as it is precarious to begin with and connected closest to my vanity) and will take the docs of the tender back to M for tea time.  Rather nervous over the cut-away drawing and it is just now catching up to me.  The Warfarin as well.  I must watch every bite of what I eat.  Of course S scanned the whole kitchen and evaluated amounts inside.  He got out my things from behind the desk and worked on the fridge contents.  Some shopping still by front door, embarrassing but I couldn’t put it away.  He growled about it.  I told him the army nurse wasn’t coming anymore and he said, “progress, at least now you’re only pining over that Hassie-slinger of yours.”  I asked him what on earth he knows about Hasselblads & he said, undercover once as fashion photographer.  I almost choked laughing.  I did not pine after Sid, nor did I conjure him up, I told him & I sketched him out and showed him.  “That’s an actor,” he said, “from one of those James-somethings you keep all those photos of on your hard drive.  That one J likes.”  Have mercy!  “And who was bathing me?  Pulling on my socks?  And pants?  And trousers?” I asked.  He shook his head and growled sth again, but this time it ended in an explosive chuckle.  “Right, dear, not you & not me,” I said, “So am I delusional?”  “Escapism!  Employment of visualisation techniques to transform a 50-yr-old female NHS worker according to your fantasies?”  “You would do the same, my dear.”  (Zing!  It’s frightfully easy when you know how.  And he is *so* pretty when he blushes that I cannot always resist.) “See, she was here, too, on the other days, and those techniques didn’t work on her,” I replied.  (“Aleeex!”)  He admitted to having tailed J to a counselling centre for veterans & I told him off for acting like a teenager, toward a soldier, his own lover, who probably needs to decompress after their trip. Going by S's emotionless eyes, it was a difficult one.  On reflection, I suppose S had nervous energy to burn because they only just had some sort of row over the lady, Lord knows why.  Well.  He didn’t want to talk about Vilnius but brought me a beautiful card from the National Museum there, of _Nec mergitur_ , a painting of a mythical ship in a storm I’d not ever seen before.  

And no chance of a second blush, nor finding good blogs from him when he insists his blogger is "the only erotic one".  Apparently J is quite the story-teller as well but I’m not about to ask about those pillow tales of theirs.  I doubt they would “work on me”.  Just a feeling, since nothing does, if we’re being honest.  There’s something about...incessant clicking ? that kills the mood (No, I haven’t swallowed a timepiece honey but I can sure as hell...blah blah...perhaps I should write for valve-bearers with these cockblockers in their chests?  Blog title:  Clockblock?  Riding tick?)  On that note I shall call a cab and deliver a sheaf of drawings to S's elegant brother & I'll be damned if I show a mite of how ridiculous I am feeling, ha.  

18:28     Tea brief, less than an hour this time, M formal/saw I wasn’t up for much in the way of (anything). He told me several anecdotes about recent diplomatic foul ups, quite funny if not disturbing re. our stature in Europe.  I believe he wanted to cheer me but laughing is still painful and I am close to screaming inside all the time, it’s right there.  Re. designs, most importantly. He was reserved toward the pavilion interior.  No surprise, there -- my first of this sort, so not necessarily in accordance with conventions he’d see in the other entries.  He remarked that the reason he'd asked me to work sans-CAD and colourise in watercolour (risky as hell, with my arms as they are + lack of masking materials) was that there were other submissions (hand-drawn) "and those are true competition though limited to wall treatments".  An aside: the Hor once compared hand-drawing to bare-backing in front of everyone.  Mercy.  That remark actually came to mind while M was talking.  May I mention that one could develop a paranoia of thought-crime around him -- mainly projectively, because of the austerity he enforces on himself. An unknown exponent of S’s self-discipline.  He hardly smiles and if he does, it is usually purposeful, too.  As smirks, ironic huffs, and so forth are purposeful. Now that he’s seen me at it I feel even more volatile in that office.  One does not have the chance to drift about emotionally or pretend at things around him, like, "I'm perfectly well, thank you", a bloody lie.  His politeness helped me remember myself. 

S makes such odd remarks about the scope of M’s activities, I don’t know what to think, at all.  He is not a cog-type bureaucrat, and again, I've not managed to divine who he works for.  I am exhausted.  We’ll meet the day after tomorrow regarding some sort of other drawing task. 

_14\. Feb._

OMG S texted that J gave him sweets!  That is the most darling thing ever & I think he was actually surprised by them or?  This isn’t a happy day for him, though.  He lost his Mum on V-day.  They lost their Mum.  At such different stages of life, as David and I did.  As in many families, of course.  Sophie texted, nice of her.  I walked to the Thames and hailed a cab -- ouch.  I had a hibiscus tea with rose petals and fretted aimlessly over the blasted drawings.  Let go, let go, indeed.  Perhaps M wanted to distract me.  I've got to the bottom of that, I think.  S has worked with Jens on several cases, apparently, in the past -- for New Scotland Yard.  M knows Jens, simply, though S.  I needn't have wondered.  At the cafe there was a man who reminded me very much of the fellow in the Hawelka, by the window.  Dark, elegant clothes, white headphones, but only one in his ear.  Like an earpiece.  Trying to act casual, nervy.  

A part of me still wishes I were Mata Hari.


	25. Catalytic

_15\. Feb._

Cud-bud.  I was flipping through this book & my eye fell on that bit.  Still a very good idea, in theory, though I imagine drawing out the terms for such an arrangement would spoil it.

As for terms of an arrangement.  Today, plenty to be had.  Bizarreness included. I am nearly laughing, but M was not laughable in the least.  No.  I know what we are, now, at least what we’ll project to others at an event I am already quite anxious over, in a week’s time.  “Colleagues”.  To such a man -- me, a colleague, when I am literally famished after batting down cobwebs from the corners of this greying head.  Will come back to this later on when I am feeling less primal. I’d nearly forgotten what hunger actually feels like.  Murderous!

17:40     M impatient but now I suspect he was hung over, as S admitted several minutes ago in a text that they were drinking a lot last night.  Indeed, M was a bit off.  Well, it’s hard to analyse, I hardly know my 'colleague', do I.  So after chatting about the Balkans -- and more specifically Bosnia, *to* me, since I understood very little and cannot claim to have chatted *with* him -- (that bit was quite astonishing in complexity) -- he explained he would like me to portrait several ambassadors from S. America first, and then some of the Royal Family !?! (the latter group at a ballet event I do not have details about at present beyond the date and general task of creating a number of drawings, perhaps 10, for charity, the former in a week, 6 persons).  I tentatively agreed.  Unnerving.  I've not been to a party in months, since we are counting the one in Linz. (M knew about my collapse there, meaning S must have mentioned to him it at some point, perhaps the day he picked me up from the airport. Gracious Peter, what for?)

Then how did it go:  he talked about the South China Sea and a figure from Burma, relating to the flow of narcotics.  And changed the subject yet again to the effect that he didn’t want me “to come to any harm” -- re. above, as colleagues, I suppose he meant. “Lovely that we feel the same” is all that came to mind.  Well, I’m starting from the end.  S always complains I do that.  A strange exchange, though:  when I said “lovely that we feel the same” he responded, “none of the truth conditions (in what I’d said -- something like that --) are without serious complications”.  A joke?  Not at all.  Therefore I know not if it is the loveliness of the feeling, the existence of the feeling, the assertion that there is sameness to be had about a feeling that does or does not exist/is or is not lovely, the loveliness of the sameness that I perceive which he does not, &c.  I could fill the page with the rest.  But still, lovely that we *seem* to agree, that he *presently* does not want me to “come to harm”.  Ech.

Were that only all. This man also claimed I am “catalytic” to his thinking -- hung over was he, indeed!  Presence, as it's unlikely I said anything of merit about the Balkans. I hadn't realised how many countries and ethnicities had been grouped within Yugoslavia. Ironically enough, I’d had it in my head that I’d go back to the drawing board, for Jens, at this point.  M actually pointed out today that Jens must have been frustrated by my tendency to withdraw when a person offers me something.  Which may be seen as coquettish.  Coquettish!  Hell!  I was about to say something rather sharp and he added that he chooses to see it as “convenient.”  Why, I wanted to know, because he avoids examining individuals?  As it seems he does?  Honestly! He then explained that people of his acquaintance may “find themselves pressured”.  He says someone might be impelled to influence me.  And what on earth do these things entail:  1) that I am "vulnerable to electromagnetic attack".  Naturally, I am.  But who on earth would bother? I wanted to laugh.  2) He has given me a communicator to call the driver, Rodney.  He said that the man is now at my disposal as well, that I ought to avoid public transport and cabs. He wondered why I should be surprised at something which is intended for my convenience.  Granted, I am trying not to read into it.  I’m sure it wasn’t meant to imply I am weak (vulnerable that way).  It was thoughtful, for someone who does not seem to bother with observing the individual (himself included as I told him, rather abruptly -- too abruptly, that was unnecessary). I don’t fathom how I am / my behaviour could possibly be "convenient", to someone like him in particular.  Unless he means to show me my place by analogy, in which case, well.  Another thought occurs: could I be in danger and neither of the brothers are telling me because they are sparing me the nerves?  Impossible, book?  Like being met upstairs in a library you’d only just decided to go to?  

He presents things from such a distance, though this little device is a convenience, undeniably. Kind of him to think of it. 

How on earth can I be catalytic to anyone, honestly. I wish I were someone's fire.  There's little chance of that, book, no worries, your pages are safe.  In other news, I’ve got an appointment for my 7-week on the 21st.  Me:  “Yes, in fact, a fickle penis, constant indigestion, post-operative blues which lead to irritability, attacks of anxiety, depressive episodes and snideness.  So when can I have sex?”  Imagine S sitting in a chair at my side, monitoring the progress of my visit, as per usual. Doctor: “When assisting Alex in the shower with a fickle penis...”  Stop, Lexie. "After which the snideness should abate."  

21:00    Once I start seeing someone, would it not be rather awkward, regarding this device, Rodney, &c.  This is a question.  I should give this back, soon.

22:10     I am considering dating.  Ah, I think I just brought up an area.  Perhaps there is a way to start slow, have some rapport without all the rubbish talk and pretending at things.  Since I cannot erase this ink I have to re-write that thought.  In fact, I won’t tonight.  I don't know why I am even writing this down, but I am considering dating.


	26. For particulars enquire

_18\. Feb._

When S said something like “a secret for a secret” and “mine is choice” I found myself spoiled for the riches of unexciting secrets I might tell the world’s best detective.  Ha.  I chose my Lena. I’d never really told anyone about all of that, not that it’s something many would be interested in hearing.  S didn’t ask for details but deduced the rest. I have transparent facial expressions, as I was reminded today.  That is a blessing around some people, with whom one may say little and show more -- I might place both Holmes brothers in this category. When I hear myself say certain things it brings me to where I'd rather not talk, to anyone. I could carry on that way for quite a while longer. Or not. Confession breaks me to bits every time, it's only getting worse, because of the sort of thoughts I have, so I appreciate this feature of my friendship with S, if we can call something so uncanny a ‘feature’. Anyhow, it was a relief to tell someone a bit about her, and in so few words.  

In some ways having been engaged to her feels like an another existence altogether.  I don’t remember what we used to talk about so much, except that we did have fun. And I think I’ve blocked out most of the sex. There wasn't much of it, anyhow, we kept busy, or I did.  I remember the warmth of it and the physical side with P, and later Lena, I remember enjoying that they liked it, that it was flattering.  There was physical relief but by then I was becoming aware of what I was wanting.  The guilt in those thoughts, at first. 

S scared me for a minute.  Well, he sort of mentioned that I’d told him I was not suicidal. I told him: sometimes there are impulses that take hold.  There are, it can be a moment unlike any other for years at a time.  He said it later on when he was introducing the subject of his own secret (“there are impulses...”) and I was afraid he meant he’d been feeling that bad.  But S’s secret -- which I am reluctant to write if it is meant to be truly secret!  Fine:  he wants to consider proposing to J.  That would be so wonderful, yet I would be far happier for him if he’d even looked pleased when he told me about it.  He reminded me of a man who’s been forced.  I think he was just jumpy, I certainly don’t blame him.  It’s a big step & the best news I’ve heard in ages.  It would be when they’re in Salzburg (at the forensics conference he’s been preparing for, also for ages).  Such a lovely place, and I think he will come around.  I told him he should do it, of course he should.  

There is one other thing, and he even claimed I am "in a position" to understand:  J was once married.  I suppose I knew that but had sort of forgotten about it.  In fact, now that I think of it, I’ve seen a photograph or two of them dressed accordingly.  Meaning S was his best man, OMG, poor dear.  Now it’s hard to remember that they were ever not together.  A great love has that power of erasure, I think.  At least I believe it would.

21:46 My brother was furious when I told him the wedding was off and came out at the same time. For the first several minutes I thought he would fight me over it. He denied everything, which never made sense, given his professional knowledge. He, of all people, should have seen even before me that I am what I am.  At first (why am I writing this!) I took it as a reassuring sign that I'm passably straight-acting. I had so much anxiety about everyone seeing me, once I was aware of my own self. I have no idea if that makes any sense. At the time I wanted to know I could fall back on that "self", not fully internalising the idea, or the enormity of the idea, that things would always be different, and real, finally. David told me to "fix" it, marry, quit it.  I was the defective brother, all over again. He’d helped us arrange a lot of things for the party.  Enough of this.  In fact I’m not feeling well.

 

_19\. Feb._

Headache, since last night.  Regrets.  Meaning I’ve an invitation to answer, with my regrets.  It’s windy out today and I don’t feel up for it.  An order of shopping, as well, I should be here. 

His writing is his own again -- it is also elegant and mannered with long plunges and peaking loops.  Skeptical, systematic, tense, visionary, a heavy touch (irritable?), secure.  Instinctive.  Nothing new to be divined, in other words.  It is him, to a high-crossed ‘t’.

Another regret, that I do not know whose wax seal this once was, but it is lovely, carved agate.  It has three sides, and depending on the occasion one chooses his motto and rotates the seal into place.  A bit of oxblood wax with the scent of cedar and...we are...in the 19th century, Lexie.  Slow mail by slow male, for a brilliant one.  I’ve chosen the seal that reads “For particulars, enquire within” because it feels relevant.  Well, at least more so than “Tho lost to sight to memory dear” or “God speed you to me” with an early steam train. 

Just now I have spent a half hour trying to get over these two sides which I will not use for a very long time.  That is age, and I am pathetic. This is nothing particularly earth-shattering as discoveries go but I see now that age is also about understanding how long things take, looking ahead and calculating without even meaning to. 

And I don’t want a pacemaker.

 

_20\. Feb._

Nothing turns me on, mornings too.  I might go back to one of my juvenile hobbies, I suppose, revive the crafty & slutty Dorian and write a proper wank-fic for fun.  I believe that’s what they call them now.  I never know the jargon.

Med. visit tomorrow w S.

 

_21\. Feb._

Jens texted just now about my pencils and things, which I’d already written off, so to speak.  OMG, I literally got hot around the eyes.  I’m supposed to be getting dressed, it takes nearly twenty minutes still with all of my little methods and I am sitting here at the table, literally to force myself to stop pacing.  Even though I should be grateful for the ability to pace.  It’s going quite well by now, this pacing. 

16:20     I asked Dr. T about ED and Warfarin, and he claims it isn’t linked, necessarily, and is either a factor of age (?!) or a matter for “mental health professionals to look into”.  I feel different on these pills and it is not a coincidence that this is happening, now.  The issues are no different now than before, aside from the pain, which is lessening all the time.  Thrombosis, though, and the AF factor, he reminded me.  Warfarin.  Yes, yes.  Avoid rough intercourse, yes, yes, I nodded as though I were just as concerned.  Oh, please.  Well.  He’s no idea what he’s missing, really.  But try to explain that in front of the family photographs on his desk.  When they took my blood it was gushing, true.  It takes at least twice as long for it to stop. 

So S and I were having coffee/tea afterward and I remarked that his brother is scary, a bit.  For the things he knows, I meant.  He is working with some intelligence that makes me wonder if he isn’t a consultant for MI6, but.  The British Government, or “the” analyst, S told me, sort of making fluttery quote marks with his fingers and then a few seething comments to the effect that...unless starting a coup, introducing suitcase dictators, interfering with others’ constitutions.  I don’t remember now, but I didn’t find that particularly descriptive or helpful.  Assassinations, too? I asked.  Oh, not often, not every week, would get boring, etc. so did he want to give you another biscuit -- ? 

He didn’t have many suggestions about the party tomorrow night with the ambassadors, aside from not dressing “like the help”.  Ha!  S is deeply bitter, though.  This is not the best example, perhaps, but there is a rivalry of some sort, here, concerning work (?)  Not to say open jealousy, though I’ve no doubt there was (is) still admiration behind it + some history, perhaps over the police investigations.  Which he does not seem to take on anymore.  M is nothing short of generous with me, and I didn’t really feel like explaining that “not biscuits, but truffles, excellent tea” but it’s a delicate topic and I wasn’t up for it.  Particularly re. sweets!  


	27. Party to a dinner

_22\. Feb._

A. was furious as he watched his dinner being chosen, by James -- in a steel hard voice.  The remark he'd just made to their waiter had been obscenely ambivalent, thought Q., as James put out his tongue and licked at the edge of his lip where was still bearing the angry-red remains of a fist fight.  “Cross that I'm feeding you up?  I know what you want in your mouth tonight, Quartermaster. Adalbert,” he said, surly eyes sliding over the younger man. It was a look that felt like a chapped hand or lip, a callous -- Q.'s cock already grateful for the ideas forming in his head (their heads -- though James was drinking hard -- a subconscious bend toward pliancy at my hand? mused the Quartermaster.)

Bleh.  Naughty Dorian in the garden shed but this time rubbing off on the service weapon tucked in his lover's pants. Enough, Lexie, you were a portrait artist, tonight, and possibly a bit of burden, so.

The party with the ambassadors.  Dinner with him. The topics, of intelligence, carefully cloaked but it was still awfully exciting. And I can’t get to sleep, so a few words before I forget even more things. Above all, I needn’t have worried so much about my place there.  I sat to the side in the salon near the fire and sketched some of the guests, and the drawings were given as gifts, from the hosts.  The intention was to bring together some of the ladies.  A concord among wives.  Brazilian Portuguese, Chilean Spanish, Venzuelan Spanish, Panamanian, &c.  M was speaking/translating on occasion.  I asked later, when I was free, if he knew as many languages as the Holy John Paul II, who spoke at least 8 fluently (some say 12, obviously divine inspiration).  M rolled his eyes a bit like S and said, "It's useless to make a count of learned language systems, the completeness of which cannot be measured in any useful way."  "How many, though?" He muttered that he uses 16 “with regularity, though they may possess a degree of bookishness” & that others are easily adopted by analogy “as the need arises.”  My mouth went dry. Book, imagine. By analogy?  Mine right then would have been ‘mind-as-desert’.  I remarked, “Well. For every language a persona, they say?”  He sort of stared at that.  He may have been mildly tipsy by then and by all rights he ought to have been. 

Tolerance -- high. I’m not only referring to the whiskey at this party w/ the others. Evidence is offered up by his decanter at the club.  He may be serving it to guests but I’ve a feeling it is not that, as none the tumblers have been moved save one, always the same one.  So.  He stood aside and sipped at I believe the third whiskey tonic, possibly double though I don’t know drinks well, for obvious reasons.  He mentioned a reference made by the Chilean ambassador, a translation of a 17th century manuscript concerning Spanish conquests -- accounts -- I wish I could remember now, but from the collection at the Bod.  “Have you sometimes visited the Bodleian archives?” I asked (I know, shoot me, so dull of me).  He nodded, “Most recently, in autumn.”  “On your birthday?"  "Yes.  Ah."  "You know, my older brother’s birthday is two days after yours?  And five years?”  He swallowed down the rest of that blasted drink at once.  “Indeed,” he answered, and seemed about to go ask for another.  I said, “In fact, you know, I’ve been needing some mint tea and I’m not certain who I might ask for it.”  He looked me over again and for a minute I imagined I’d made a faux pas. He called someone over and it was brought in a few minutes.  While I sketched my last subject he disappeared for long enough that I began wondering if he’d gone back to the office or got sick. 

When he did return, he approached me at my chair. “My brother sends his regards.  Apparently you are not answering your phone.”  “Apparently not. And are we well?” I asked. (Auntie-mode, I know, but stay with me, it gets better.)  "Thank you, yes," he replied, glancing up at an outburst of laughter in the corner of the room.  Just then everyone was invited to the dining room for supper.  As soon as the double doors were opened for the guests, M looked in and said, with a sort of grimace, “Three not-entirely-unexpected errors meaning a certain manoeuvre is called for, Alexander."  "What sort?" I asked.  He cleared his throat, "I’m taking you to dinner in a quarter hour.”  I replied, “Well, that escalated.”  He almost smiled, almost. “They’ve set two places too few.  As it happens there are also two individuals in the room who will take unkindly to the suggestion they were unexpected," he explained, "as they refused the invitations with intent but turned up, someone neglected to account for it.  For the last time, I suspect, going by the whittling of a cuff button by the Peruvian, note it?  In short, we will not dine, here.  Oil refinement subsidies, given the recent Venezuelan handover -- well.  You wouldn't tolerate the wine-infused pork from the caterer even if you weren’t fasting today.”  “Right you are, dear,” I replied and smiled over at him, right as I heard myself saying it.  

At some stage it would be fun to illustrate the total realignment of cells I felt.  I’ve got far too familiar with S, this way.  M didn’t react (he wouldn’t -- his incredible composure) and just as I was trying to formulate a bit of a save, the Chilean ambassador’s wife came and took me aside by the arm.  She told me she loved her husband’s new portrait & asked if I’d please choose one of a few exotic wooden pens she had, with tiny scenes of palms and sands or patterns all in intarsia.  She unwrapped each one and described how they'd been made by a former classmate of hers from a village near La Serena.  I asked her about the lighthouse there and she nearly cried -- “Oh, oh, I kissed my great love for the first time, there,” she said, “it will be in my heart forever.  Yes, our _el faro_ is historical.  Oh, Mr. Holmes, you’ve found us a very fine artist, indeed.”  He sniffed and looked away, as she linked her elbow with mine and tried to squeeze me but found mainly bones.  (The party had been her initiative.  And nooobody had given himself a crash course in S. American geography and landmarks in prep for these gambits all evening.  Mercy.)  M was standing aside, wanting to leave before everyone else was seated to dine, so I asked him to choose one of the holders for me, to imply that she’d spoiled me for choice, because they were just gorgeous and each completely different, though it seemed to impinge on him more than being called “dear”.  (I get these things all wrong!)  “This one.”  He picked up the most beautiful of them for me, which I’d elected to leave for someone else.   (It has tiny interlocking shaded cube shapes in multiple woods, with a widened, stylised grip that feels nice in the hand.)  As we were leaving the house I told him there was no need for dinner, after all.  “Indeed. I’ve seen what I expected to.”  It occurred to me he'd misunderstood my refusal.  “Namely?” I asked. “Well.  Among other things, a note in a certain agenda book.  To be followed by a departure from renewable energy investments.  Of interest to you, perhaps, at least anecdotally.  Compliance means four extra years of grain subsidies to avoid disturbing commodities.  Come, there is only an hour and a half, the papers.”  By which he means:  something ultra is burning a hole into my desktop. 

(As an aside, how would he know about my interest in renewable energy, i.e. in the Danish project?  I don’t recall mentioning it to him or S.)

We had supper at a small restaurant (I was too slow by then to note the signage so I cannot even say where we were aside from Wandsworth-ish), though I am certain everything had been prepared for me, alone -- delicious flavours that allowed the palate to overlook the lack of salt.  Perfect, and I told him so.  He had a small cut of venison with artichokes and a salad made of various red and violet vegetables arranged a bit like a halo.  I will need to try and replicate mine, a tri-coloured wild rice with an unusual chervil-based (not basil-based) pesto on the side, and fillets of steamed fish with a mild raspberry vinaigrette.  Delightful, in every way -- frankly, I have hardly enjoyed a meal so much this year, meaning since my s.  M literally traced a history -- relating the exploitation of coal and gas to language extinction, which turned into a few of his longer anecdotes and so forth.  He is a fascinating person, albeit guarded.  Fortunately he did not drink anything more.  He didn’t say a word about the party, nor did he comment on the drawings themselves, though some more detailed feedback will be useful before the next event, in just under a month’s time -- I must work on my hand.  And my manners.  I’ve not been out enough.


	28. In the market

_25\. Feb._

A bit blue.  I have started resting on my side again, at least briefly.  Better for Westminster, as S would surely agree, if I could sleep this way.  But some pain in the shoulder and neck, as well as shoulder blades.  It’s not pleasant later on.

 

_26\. Feb._

In fact I need a different sort of socks for better circulation and I might have spoken to S about it when he was here, yesterday.  Interested in the chervil pesto but not in where I’d tasted it, which I suppose he’d deduced.  Of course he did, he'd tried to call. 

\---

“You shall not run off, naughty double 0-7, lost for days,” A. said & caught the man’s hip in one hand, snapping his own against him mercilessly, driving the growing ~~white~~ heat of his own immense pleasure deeper, longer, harder.  James would learn to thank him.  Another night ~~or two~~ would do it.  A. listened to his ~~dear~~ (dear?) agent’s ~~low~~ , insincere protests.  “ ~~Ffffuck~~!” the man struggled -- a reminder that A. should not savour him too long now but deliver him to forgetfulness:  just the place they both needed to be. 

I wouldn’t really be so nasty about it.  That’s the after-meal scene for the other part, above. 

 

_28\. Feb._

“Don’t kill me.”  A chilling thing to hear from a friend, isn’t it, and this time was no exception.  

Oh, volume, this isn't another attempt at -- oh, be the judge:  Sophie rang first thing this morning and I'm so furious. Speed dating, for heaven's sake.  “It’s active starting tomorrow.  Have a look. Do you have a pen? I'll give you your ID & chat access number." "Chat access number," I restated carefully, so as not to dash the phone on anything hard.  "Go out a couple times, treat it like a new experience, you deserve it.”  I was speechless, to that claim.  She essentially signed me up (paid something for it, unfortunately!) and posted a brief profile, with a photo from her phone, on a London-centric LGTB lunch/speed-dating sort of site, similar to one she’s on in Edinburgh, apparently.  OMG, I barely got through that call.  We talk so rarely I didn’t want to shout at her but when I logged on I saw this:  6’0”, Blonde/Blue, Slim, 40, Versatile, London, Scorpio.  No children, Never Married, Artist/Fine arts, Self-Employed, Financially Secure, University Education, White/Caucasian, English/German/Latin.  Roman Catholic, We’ll See/A long-term relationship/Marriage.  Television Habits:  X.  Films:  X.  Reading:  Suspense novels.  (?) Music:  Rock, jazz.  (?)  Free time:  Drawing.  Body art:  X  (Really?  Ha.)  Among the dullest on that site to be sure.  It's even suspiciously bad, in comparison to those I’ve seen while clicking about. Some are nothing short of modelling portfolios. 

Versatile London Scorpio.  No blow-jobs during the adverts, I listen to jazz incidentally while in the shops, not that I know the first thing about it.  I like Rock!  Surprise skull tattoo.  Welcome!  Latin spoken!  Gracious Mother!!!  Sophie!!!

12:35     Deserve vs. need.  A debate I’ve had both with S and internally.  Yet what have I done to deserve speed-dating lunches in particular, I ask the universe?  Is this my accumulated “deserving”?   I ought to eat, for one.  Wobbly hand.

13:25  OMG S might come across this.  Or M.  It isn’t even about being laughed at -- they wouldn’t.  But this is not how I want to be presented to anyone.

14:15     That there is a dating profile out there, right now, and she has the access to delete it.  She used a picture where I look so grey, with Henry’s reading glasses on my head.  To my credit, I look blissfully happy that I am so ancient.  Ironically, it was taken at her cafe a few minutes before I met S, to test the camera in her new smartphone.  Last summer, 29 June.  13 people have clicked on That already. I see now she marked preferred age as "30-40".  30!  Ech.

18:50     I might log in & change that age part, but that is like participating.  Lord, I must change it.  I’ve been drawing like a fiend all afternoon.  

Decision:  compromise.  I’ll go three times or so, take a sort of average, do a bit of observing.  I was just thinking of (dating) -- be careful what you think of. 

21:32     Coming back to this photo, one never knows when his world is about to be tilted on its axis a few degrees, does he?  For this reason alone I should go out a few times, assuming X.

An invitation for tea at the Diogenes, tomorrow at four.  M has received the new Heute und Morgen, he wrote.  Before other subscribers?  Perhaps a friend from his circles brought it directly for him.

 

_02\. Mar._

Rodney -- will not be contacted.  I plan to take the device in case I want to leave, though.  The irony in that makes me rather uncomfortable.  Nick from Sales at 1:45; he chose the irregular hour.

15:50     Home, already, thankfully.  Nick Sawyers (Sales and Promos, Vodafone).  One of the top manipulation techniques of salespeople:  whatever is desired is also in limited supply -- theoretically encouraging an irrational, emotional choice or stirring up want.  Thus he kept his mobile on the table & let me take in just how many souls on Grindr were all around him/us, ‘poking’.  The other strategy was narrowing: “Your profile said Scorpio, off-putting but I thought I’d give you a spin [...] you’re one of the jealous ones or one of the pervy ones?” 

Jealous, of those walking past, outdoors.  It was a lost cause so I decided to take it in stride and have a bit of fun with it.  (When I can’t bear things I imagine a sort of film fantasy, that it’s not really me but someone else -- it often helps with pain management and bad news.)  So.  It was too warm there and my scar started to itch and I wanted to tear at it (pervy?).  More messages, more....  “Shall I help you choose one?” I finally asked. (Though admittedly, my ability to choose a lunch partner....  I almost said, though I imagine the look on my face was enough.)  Once he’d caught up he laughed and apologised but didn’t put the mobile away.  He finally admitted that to him lunch without a fuck for dessert is a loss but that I seem kind of nice.  Intellectual, but nice.  (Since intellectuals are generally bastards, I suppose.)  I had a not-sly look at his watch and asked an open-ended question about football, thus 20 minutes gained for the inner life.  This sounds so cynical but I really couldn’t listen, and the notifications were upsetting, call me a letter-writing throwback.  I had the impression he’d enhanced his lips -- they were nice, a bit swollen in appearance, and I spent the last minutes of the slowest speed lunch ever, wondering to myself if he had scarring from collagen injections, which occasionally leave tiny nodules in the lip tissue, S has told me.  On the way to the door, he asked what I do for a living (“by the way”).  Sugary smile:  “I’m afraid I cannot tell you that.”  I felt so much better when I could stroll a bit.  The sun was out, briefly.

A third of the way through this silly experiment.

 

_03\. Mar._

Zayan, 32, and in my estimation far too lovely a person (appearance & personality both) to be so lonely.  Artistic carpentry (carvings of natural motifs) in a family-owned furniture workshop; I had the impression they sort of hide him in the workroom instead of letting him express himself/get out much to mingle.  I’d had problems staying asleep after three and I wasn’t in form & he seemed to be trying to get over someone and failing to.  The small talk was actually meaningful, though.  He was very polite, and I liked his focus, that he never once glanced down at any device aside from his fork, and that because he was nearly choking up over someone he knows he cannot have.  A straight friend.  And I told him a bit about my Carly.  Finally we had a laugh about what we were doing and elected to call it a well-spent hour anyhow and went our separate ways.  I’ve essentially spent the rest of the afternoon choked up, as well.  I don’t really want to go into it.  I wanted to go to the church but I always have this nagging anxiety about encountering B there on this particular weekday, though I’m sure I’m not the only one.  No further comment.

I went, he was there, and even approached close enough to converse, twice.  

Silence is golden.

 

_05\. Mar._

How does one connect emotionally under such preposterous conditions!  Or is that what everyone is avoiding?  Connections should be replaced by hook ups, then?

The above rant was brought on by less than half an hour with “Kirk”.  I am not good at superficial contact.  Never have been.  We can’t all excel at superficiality or it would lose its utility. 

Yes, I am feeling cynical.  I learned that speaking calmly and upholding some semblance of manners is feminine!  How on earth a person can speak to me for less than twenty minutes and claim that I'm fem....  Last I checked, fucking a bloke over a tabletop was not feminine (a paraphrase of what I actually said).  K: “What?  No, this is hooking up, see, I’m not into courting by candlelight.” 

I considered telling S about at least one of the dates but it’s bloody pathetic and he would dig up my profile in about half a minute. 

Meeting M later on and chatting about a terror cell’s dirty bomb technologies did more for my appetite, quite honestly.  The amount of work he turns over in a day is astonishing and I am ashamed that our nation finds itself in such chaos, so poorly governed, that such a man-as-filter is needed, at all.  I would never tell him so. In fact, there are a number of things I feel I am holding back on the subject of MH but I don’t feel comfortable writing any of them down. 

Rubbish.  Games with the ego.  Enough:  I just want to make love to the same person, for as long as I’ve got, to make someone smile.  That would mean a lot to me.  But first, one has to be wanted.  And that where it goes to hell, as this experience has shown.  Granted, the Iraqi Christian, Z, was very kind and talented (though heartbroken), and were he 10 years older, I’d have asked to meet him again. 

Fine.  In a nutshell, it is as follows:  I regret with increasing intensity that I would not interest a person of M's calibre. 


	29. Learned via autopsy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2:35-36

_10\. Mar._

In the morning I got such a nice email from Zayan, the wood carver, with photographs of a puzzle-frame he’d made after meeting me last week (prototype).  He claims my story about Carly inspired it & he plans to sell them at a boutique in S. Ken. shortly.  It is a work of free standing relief, Angicised arabesque/chintz-influenced patterns (flowers, birds) all over it, with a picture frame hidden inside.  The only way to get to it is if you slide out several of the flowers (!) in the right order.  He joked that it “delays looking longingly at a picture and hides it so it cannot be talked about carelessly by whoever comes into the room”.  I could probably use one of those but I’m afraid it would need to be much larger, which is why it set me off and I cannot concentrate now.  There is no doubt in my mind that Warfarin is making me feel this way.

S came by to share a printout of his conference slides (and check my fridge!).  I asked him sth.  Background:  I’ve been thinking about the day M sort of had me kidnapped at the corner of Great Peter/Lord North and his calm reaction to my statement that I support and wouldn’t want anything (me, especially) to come between J & S.  How he shrugged & I asked if he’d been checking my intentions, and he said, “in part” he had been.  When he told me about Jens and Horatio I was feeling so low that I managed to overlook several things:  after admitting that our conversation at the GB club had been a provocation (indeed), he asked me to call him M, offered me a biscuit (OMG, I was so exhausted right then, so done with blokes) and made several deductions -- about my hand/being peckish, that I often think things in German.  Well.  Today I asked S, “Are you able to tell when J is hungry?”  S smiled and said that of course he can, obviously, and listed several mannerisms that indicate degrees of hunger and resulting edginess, etc. and I asked, “Can you tell when I am?”  And he studied me.  “Your stomach bothers you whether you’ve eaten or not,” he said.  “But am I peckish, now?”  “Possibly.”  “I am.”  “Why didn’t you say as much.”  “Not the point,” I said, and he growled to himself as soon as it occurred to him I might be drawing a comparison.  So touchy in that regard.  Needlessly, because the more I look at them both, the less I can compare them at all.  Not that I am objective at this point.  More on that another day.  My point is, S notices these things because he cares for J.  M notices these things because he notices absolutely everything.  That must drive him mad.

 

_11\. Mar._

“Essential”.  A cruel joke, as I may have wrecked everything concerning S’s intent to propose to J, and if so I shall not forgive myself. 

Essential to no one!  A humbling and distressing fact. 

Even so, I am glad S reached out, it could have been a far darker night for all of us.  I can’t sleep.  It’s almost two and I can’t get a hold over myself.  Why does he mock me this way?  Is this a mockery?

 

_12\. Mar._

Igni ferroque -- most likely believing it clarifies for the long term -- rather than focusing on J’s immediate need for *safety*?  M should know better, they’ve been acquainted for years.  Familiarity should be an advantage.  And yet.  

It is, quite honestly, painful to write:  this is the latest in a series of acts that speak of enormous resentments.  Not pertaining to sweets, or professional competition but to the parents themselves.  Just a theory.  But I am trying to understand this, and being one of few men who find themselves at a certain point of overlap with both brothers, I feel I might have something to say, now that those ‘acts’ have gone this far.  Namely:  S says frightfully cruel things when he feels that someone (I) should be better, stronger, brighter.  I suspect that sort of shortcoming was brought to *his* attention far too often.  After losing their Mum, who’d have taken over?  M, of age by then, as I doubt the help would have managed with S.  Nor would the father have shown sudden concern:  S never mentions him and has never asked me about mine (thankfully, since I’ve nearly nothing to say and I’d not want him to rush off and investigate his last years for me).  Moreover, M did not respond to my regard for his painting of Her Majesty, which he immediately mentioned had been done as a gift, to cut short any assumption that he paints for pleasure.  Keeping a portrait (an accomplishment) behind one’s back, so that it faces another, can be the equivalent of “I present my work for your (probable) appreciation, though I choose not to acknowledge either:  it did not serve the intended purpose (admiration? conciliation?) &c.”  It is the only thing on the walls. 

Perhaps I am reading far too much into things but where else would it (their approaches to the emotions of others -- S’s cutting impatience that slips out in a heartbeat + M’s need to shut off, the scramble for objectivity at the cost of all around, instant, precise/often devastating judgements) have come from!  The mother was an artist, at least in spirit, and her drawings spoke of a holistic, emotional approach to the natural world -- not of training in the employment of meanness, riposte, etc. for momentary personal advantage.

S gives the impression of a cold, objective mind but he is boiling, craving approval, testing whatever approval he gets, all while pushing himself to great heights of intellectual (& professional) achievement -- very much like my David.  Who was by all accounts a loving, caring child until I came along, at which point he began harming insects and small animals out of frustration, that he was so bright + forced to take a back seat to a defective, ailing brother who took far more than his share of sympathy, attention and time from everyone he loved.  He cultivated that lifelong interest in dissection and what he achieved in an emerging branch of neuropsychiatry was (I strongly believe) an extension of that need to take things apart for his own understanding (even Mum & to calm himself).  Then there is his artwork.  Pictures of his suffering, I believe.  Like S’s.  The ones from the morgue chill my heart.  I should clarify that both of their studies in the morgues chill my heart. A secret of my brother's: he had anxiety about being forgotten, and his paintings of tattoos on dead flesh, most of them tributes to lovers in intimate places, were probably about that. 

And.  I knew David’s buttons best, to the end.  Lord, forgive me, for that outburst of temper and may it never happen again, toward anyone.  Ever. 

A digression.  I was reminded of this when I received the text earlier last night, from S, the same thing David had tattooed in monastic-type calligraphy over his heart:  Mortui vivos docent.  By which I now assume S was referring to “we learn life through understanding death” or “by way of studying another” as I cannot divine what he wanted to say.

He was so unhappy, so quiet.  I could see it all over him -- if S lost J now, due to his own choices, it would mean absolute devastation.  It truly does, to that sort of personality (I should not have written that, to tempt fate, but so it is).  It is very positive that he called for help.  Well.  What a wreck of things.  The kitchen, his emotions, the soup on his clothes.  He was literally afraid for himself.  I don’t blame him, I was quite afraid for us, too.

Worst of all, though, is that I am at the heart of this, for giving him something he could not resist alone.  I told J about the codeine, another thing to make him angry but I had to, it’s my fault, my weakness and stupidity, I was so out of my head, then.  S is not entirely well, physically, much less psychologically, having resigned from almost the full range of professional activities he once enjoyed and excelled at, his chance to serve others while satisfying his own needs for praise (perhaps to be with J more, stay out of trouble, understandable, but even so, a big change) and if he is a recovering addict, he needs support and tolerance above all, for always.  If he has done something foolish (France? property?) S might be advised how to repair things quickly and discreetly, and J should have been told carefully and not in such a way as to leave him in a fury, feeling betrayed when he was anything but!  Does M’s matchless capacity for contingency planning not account for all the ways he stands to lose that beautiful brother of his to addiction, if he is pushed?

The fury.  Indeed, the evidence of which was clear enough on the entire tabletop.  S served dinner, J lost his temper and left without eating, intending to go to as far as Ascot for the night.  And then that accident, a brick on the line, etc. It was all so terrifying.  But nothing was worse than hearing S vomiting from nerves.  That was PTSD in pure form, and I’d no idea whatsoever he was dealing with so much abdominal pain, much less the stress of relapsing and disappointing J, and when he came out he was such a wreck of himself.  I’d been crying like an idiot, but I don’t even know who was worse.  He was so much like David right then, when he was coming off things or in one of his awful moods.  OMG.  He said, “Shut up!  No.  I’m sorry.  Delete that if you can.  All of it, everything, even me.  Especially me, you shouldn’t have even come.”  I thought he would start throwing things but he was too tired and sort of looked at the table for a minute.  He was in tears, by then.  That scared me so much and I sent him to bed & made tea, petted him a bit until I finally got an answer from J (after three tries) and he came home within the hour.   And I as good as handed S’s most important secret, to J.  But he was so unhappy, regarding S, that he hadn’t wanted the civil union, seemingly.  I was so afraid he would go upstairs and talk from that perspective, with that belief (S did X instead of Y -- a civil union, when I believe it may have been in order to clear the way, somehow).   

Essential!  I need no compliments from someone I find absolutely insoluble.   And I am considering giving this beautiful but misplaced card back, with a certain explanation.  Because it is indeed a mockery if M believes I did anything special in helping his brother however I could, it was a perfectly normal response to a friend's distress.  Obviously.  

He sent me an invitation for tea tomorrow.  I declined, in kind, with a single word:  Insoluble, made of roots and sewage pipes, crushing at each other for the same bit of ground.  I expect he will understand perfectly.  

I will not introduce this issue as an aside to a regular chat.  No.  This demands a separate conversation devoted to a single subject, namely "an individual in isolation", our S.  Our.  When I think of how S looked when the randomness of that train wreck occurred to him. 

How delicate we are, M!  Why add to it, anymore!  Yes, we must talk. 

S has just texted -- he and J are speaking, at least, a bit.

_13\. Mar._

I have written that if he can spare me ten minutes I will come speak to him tomorrow at 11.  He has responded that he can do so.


	30. They leave us so quickly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:36

_14\. Mar._

When I came to the Diogenes one of the attendants took me straight to M’s office without a word or even direct eye contact.  M was in the middle of examining photographs and his desk was covered with file folders in orderly stacks, which usually means profiling -- not just a person but an army’s movements, or a particular interest in relation to the illegal mining of resources, smuggling, and so on, or all three plus another dozen or so factors I shall never grasp.  Bless him.

I gave him the card.  I didn’t like giving back a hand-made object, he’d clearly put some time into it, which he spares little of for anything but sleep/sustenance -- as soon as I set it down I thought of that again, but I wasn’t about to apologise.  Not my role.  He was bothered.  Instantly defensive and closed up.  The agent’s persona, receiving data only.  He commented that I was trying to draw him out, I suppose because he thought I wanted an explanation for what he meant by “essential” though that is quite secondary to me, by now.  I suggested that he’d been behind the entire explosion between S & J, to which he responded that J had not been informed -- as though that lack of information had been the real problem, and he’d filled it in -- where S should have.  Not an unexpected approach.  He also said that S has been under surveillance on a "probationary basis", which explains a lot, too.  He commented on my card, so he did receive it.  I took a chance, and even now I can’t believe I admitted this to him -- that I would have preferred to send a different word.  "Generous."  The rationale being that he is generous to me in glaring contrast to the way he treats his brother.  This approach, I must say, was risky.  But I’d thought of it literally all morning starting at seven, and I might add for posterity that it came from Eustace.  An alternative to overt shaming -- through metaphor, and so on, but this time I wanted to present the difference between the person I know (and respect -- I hope he wasn’t hurt by all the things I said, today, about laziness of the heart, that he is "condescending" and "self-serving" to his brother) and the behaviour he shows in relation to S, which is lording, intolerant, and hurtful.  That he could take the lead as the better of them. 

I tried to tell him something about David’s and my troubled years, with an emphasis on the temporality of life, the delicacy of it and relationships, how few people we have, how quickly they leave us.  This made me feel awful -- we’re in similar situations.  I may have gestured at his right hand at the wrong time, but it is true, that we have so few chances to care, really care for someone, and they shouldn’t be wasted on conflicts, arrogant displays, and arguments.  I wanted to leave it at that.  He was sort of nodding and looking through those photographs some more. 

(And I had my next date to get to.  Lord, I was getting nervous -- the fourth.  So I was rather keen to leave and have a moment to calm myself down before carrying on to the cafe by cab.  Awkward!) 

So when I started to take leave he asked, suddenly, “where shall we start?”  I admit I had no idea what he meant at first.  Advice?  I told him to start by being kind to J, whom he upset, needlessly, and not to be cynical.  I advised him to focus on what he is holding back from S instead of what S is doing wrong, which in his eyes includes the emotional-thus-irrational behaviours, set off by his continual lack of positive regard!  It is such a vicious circle.  Respect the veteran doctor, I said, it is not hard to do, he is worthy of it, S would do anything / has done everything, to have him there at his side, after all.  That should be reason enough! 

I would have said more but I needed to go.  And as he rightly noted, I was strained, nerve-wise, by then, and delaying a date at the last minute would have been tacky and rude (and in fact I am glad I didn’t do so, more on that later on, though).  He even started to ask me to stay on and I didn't want to explain myself.  I tried to lighten things and I said, “you don’t calm my heart.”  Badly chosen.  Nothing truer, though.  And he said, “you don’t calm mine, either.”  Close to smiling.  It was nice to see that and in my relief I nearly started to laugh.  I was so pleased that we understand one another.  I was able to go out with a feeling that maybe, maybe he will think it through.  I don’t plan to go by this week again, as I have another date when we'd normally (?) have tea. And I have a series to sketch out.  A bit of sun does wonders for the synapses!

There was an exchange with Rodney outdoors at the club because I wanted to go off on my own & he was following orders and being his dutiful self trying to garner me into M’s car to take me home.  Since we’re not hiding things, I said I had another appointment. "I was to take you home." “Thank you, but no, I have a lunch and it would take too much of your time to wait for me in the centre, no thank you, etc.” and he sort of stared and nodded and went inside, presumably to explain himself.  When I’d gone another block to the main road I realised I’d left my scarf (the salmon/navy! drat) in M's office, on his desk.  I’d removed it, for Lord knows what, to strangle each of us in a different colour?  He didn’t say anything.  Moreover, my shirt had come open at some point a button further than I'd have liked, so the top of my scar was showing for however long.  Ech.   Salmon combats pallour -- the scarf-master Andy was right.  But I said "until the Equinox", so I will have to make do with the other scarves -- first world problems, as they say.  Lord, I am in such a ridiculous mood, I don’t know why.

I need a tea break before I can write anything more about my hour with Marcus. 

18:15     So I met a nice chap named Marcus Reeves for lunch.  He’s a photographer, dear volume.  When he wrote in his first message that he works for a press office and that he’d wanted to talk because he’d recognised me, my heart was pounding like mad for so many reasons.  He was nothing like Carly, but we all have silly dreams that chance will step in, at least one more time, a little.  That it will come in familiar form.  I asked him how it’s possible that he would recognise me, and he admitted he’d taken the photographs of me with S in the cafe, the time we got “engaged” in the press, when I was handing his gold ring back over the table.  I said, “I didn’t care for that photograph.”  I was keen to walk out the door and it must have shown all over me.  “Sorry,” he said, “I know, but I don’t work there anymore, I gave it up.  I’m on leave, but I’m not going back.  You see, I’m here to talk, I saw your profile and I remember faces, your glasses like that on your head, your manner, you know, I’m actually about to go in for radiation.  Just wanted to talk to someone, all right?  I worked that shot for a good fifteen minutes, longer than I needed to -- I remember you and Holmes.  Look, sorry.  I don't know what this means, my life is going to shit.  You can go if you want, I’ll pick up for all that, just go.”  I said, “Marcus, Mr. Reeves, we have an hour.  Tell me what’s happening and I promise not to judge or leave.  Talk to me.”  He looked at me like I was crazy, and then sort of melted.  Those high pressure media jobs kill the soul, they work under such pressure, with so little praise, for poor wages, against their principles, and have talent that they’ve no energy left to show or develop.  I remember it, and I was only coming in from time to time with filler sketches for them, Lord it was so long ago, ten years.  So, he told me a bit about things, he has a man’s cancer, they’ll be taking it out, one of them, and he is mortified.  Dating.  Me, dating.  This.  Is.  Me, dating.  He asked me (said, sort of) “Why did you sign up?”  “I didn’t.”  “So, pushed to do it.”  “Yeah. I’m trying to make the best of it, you have a part in that, thank you.  It was a pleasure, Marcus.”  "Nice people get pushed in to these things," he said, and sort of faded, I don't know. That was about the end of it. Poor dear.  What a small world this is, it never ceases to amaze me, how small.  


	31. Now that we're at it

_15\. Mar._

Ides of March!  Lena’s birthday.  Today she turns forty so I sent her some electric blue delphiniums but without a card.  They should have got there by now, I hope it won’t scare her.  I’m sketching out the ideas for a frieze of seven in A3, loosely based on the capital vices in the context of heavy industry.  The abuses are astonishing. I’d no idea how these things function all around us until a certain person opened my eyes a bit.  I was also reminded of the textile trade recently (not so recently, now) when S mentioned that Kadi Perkins has been teaching J French, (mystery solved -- S might have given in and asked J where he goes and why/her, aside from her beauty and talents but naturally he puzzled things out!  Which he considers easier than admitting he is affected!  Arrgh, that man!) that she has been working on a project to highlight the exploitation of textile workers in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Sri Lanka.  “Gluttony” is a factory of starved labourers in intestine-like corridors -- making redundant, cheap goods, shit and chemicals, rubbish before they ever get passed out of the place on barges, for a corpulent, horrid boss who is stuffing himself at a small table, looking on from above.  It will be gorgeous, all in my fine ground lapis blue with carmine detailing.  I wish my own gut were healthier.  This is not good.

Mulling over that chat with Marcus.  If I were ever with a photographer I would begin to compare, where that should never happen.  C was a one-off.  Unique.  Someone I might not have considered without that introduction, however.  That has always haunted me, a bit.  The way one is introduced.

 

_16\. Mar._

It feels like shopping so I don’t look for anyone.  They write to me and I pretend I am not entirely involved & not at fault for who I meet.  Transparently sabotaging this dating-game. 

“What U Like?  Wanna lick?”  Paralysing questions.  I've no clue. No. Yes. As regards “what U like” + well-shaved bollocks in a leather push-up configuration.  Props were never a strong point.  Not the usual ones.  Usual?  As though I had first-hand knowledge, honestly.  

Props, book.  Painting henna on the backs of Carly’s thighs and down his perineum for him -- I'd nearly fainted when he showed up shaved, hungry.  He got like that sometimes, where he would come for the night and say, "fuck me, babe, come on."  And listening to him laugh and beg to be fingered was a good use of a brush, if not a distracting memory while painting detailed designs, even this morning.  The way he licked the tips of my toes and asked me to touch myself for him while he sat back, legs propped up and his hole right in front of me until the designs dried enough & we rinsed it off sooner than later because it burned so I ate him under the shower, drank so much water from off his back, fucked him on the floor.  The flex of his stomach, as he tried to hold together.  The sounds.  Mine, his.  (Is it pathetic to want to listen to sex more than watch it?)

Which is the worst:  1) want  2) wanting something in particular  3) wanting something in particular which one has had  4) and lost  5) damn it.

Better.  It has not been a good day.  I've spent far too much time in this kitchen.  Cold food, wet tabletop, tired eyes.  Pathetic!  More messages I cannot answer.  Yet undeniably, “what U like” replaces a dozen or so of those 36 “know-me/love-me” questions & there wouldn’t be any eye contact, perhaps it would be easy.  "What U want, hottie?" (an ad-bot.)  To be well.  To be emotionally objective, and fair toward others.  And have a little fuck.  Come with someone there to share a kiss with.  Make someone come.  Taste a man again.  Smell him.  Spring is getting to me.  Just not far enough down when I need it to.  This is starting to be disturbing, particularly in relation to what I once was.  When I look at myself now and imagine some of the things I heard in the moment.  Well, I was younger.  Prettier and a closer approximation to a 'hottie'.

How many innuendos does it take to write the truth:  I can’t get it up.  I can’t even believe this.  Still.  Emasculating.  In fact, I’m positive I wouldn’t get it up unless one had well over an hour to spare, only foreplay, only to unwind.  Not the current model, from what I can see.  

 

_17\. Mar._

Gracious Mother.  The dreams I had.  Waves of colour, laughter, falling, licking things and shouting something across a street.  All in German.

19:40     I can’t stop this today.  I have nobody to give all of this to.  Is this what it's all been for?  This clicking?

20:39     I’ve got another date tomorrow.  That took almost a half-hour of messaging to arrange.  Thankfully he could not see my face.

22:12     I want too many things, it’s clear, but I would settle for one:  I would like to say “I love you, too,” again, someday.  Yet reaching that feels further away than death, even on a day like today when the pain is abating, I can really breathe. 

In fact I want M.  I need to keep my tenses straight, now of all moments.  I would. Want him. 

 

_18\. Mar._

Jamie is an occupational therapist who works with people who have lost limbs to teach them to function anew, with and without prostheses.  He pulled out my chair for me like I might have done for him -- he was quicker.  Naturally, a keen observer of body language, cues, &c.  Slightly shorter than me, 37 years old, pleasant, stocky, a bit hairy, manly, a sworn top.  He saw easily I am not entirely well. The top of the scarring between my collarbones, once I'd taken off my scarf.  Why bother to hide it. I told him I’m looking ahead, with a sort of “don’t” in it.  Talking to him about his hospital work was engaging, and touching.  (I had the impression my reactions were making him uncomfortable, at first -- perhaps I was staring.  I tend to, I know.)  I think given more time we’d have opened up better.  However, we didn’t have many visible interests in common, as he spoke of television and personalities, music, events I’d never heard of, and I could see he enjoys clubs and night life, is a mixer.  I didn’t see how I would fit in, in the least, even as an occasional date, unless he wants a contrast to all the things he seems to hold dear -- essentially what I told him about halfway through the hour.  He said he didn’t really agree, but then again, he had been shopping about for "a less serious" person.  Than what he perceived *me* to be.  He was referring to my profile (re. marriage/long-term).  He is seeking a consistent partner for sex:  he 'compartmentalises' & wants it to be safe & with one & the same, but with no strings.  I shook my head and sat back.  He looked me up and down again and puffed his cheeks, ffffftt.  "Why...not?" he asked.  I answered more or less like this:  "I think I'd feel hemmed in by the same thing you find 'freeing'.  I would be waiting, trying to make our limited time together special.  I mean that it would be upsetting to be such an auxiliary part of my only lover's life, when I have a lot more to give at this point."  (That was perhaps too personal a statement to make to a stranger, but I can hardly think of anything else, lately.  I would want to make someone very, very happy, as much as he would let me.)  "Whoa, okay," Jamie said.  "That's how I do casual," I said, and took my last sip of tea.  He didn't smile, though.  "Yeah.  What about this lunch, though?  What were you, I mean, wanting out of today?  Like, from me? What was it?" he asked.  I was surprised he bothered to talk about it.  "I was interested in your choice of profession, your masculinity and openness.  And to a point they were complementary, indeed."  "Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing.  Think you'll change your mind?"  "No, but this was nice, thank you."  "Nice."  "In fact, it was." "Give it a go? Because I have a bad feeling," he said, "you're going to stay in my head, Alex."  "You'll be far too busy for that.  Good luck this Friday, you mentioned a chat with your supervisor, about a transfer?"  "Oh!  Yeah.  Thanks, I'll need it."  I gave him my hand.  He looked so lost.  Aren't we all.  

23:50     What am I doing.  A hopeless cause if ever I took one to heart -- and I am a master in that particular sub-field:  hopeless longing. 

M is not interested.  Not!  Widower, remember that, what that is!  What he is versus what I am!  This is what has been tearing at me.  I didn’t want to see my hand write it.  Oh, hell.  Now that we’re at it:  He is so capable of wonderful things in this world, so many.  Brilliant, talented. It doesn’t help a thing (from my side) that he is among the most elegant, distinguished and well-mannered men I have ever known.  Handsome. I cannot eat this orange at my left hand just now without dreaming of a certain pairing:  his orange-with-cedar, on my tongue. I smell it when he walks past me and on the cards.

Factory cut-away.  I will fill it with the maimed.  For now, nearly fifty figures.

_19\. Mar._

Texting with S earlier on.  Everything’s all right between them, wanted to know how many meals I'd had.  He’d never say it aloud though I have the impression that like so many of us, he is the happiest inside when he knows his man wants him.

A note from M with instructions for Saturday’s party.  I’ve not been writing much about this event though I think about it quite constantly.  I am reading up because I am terrified on the one hand, yet on the other I am counting on M to take the lead in vital matters such as the introductions, which I like least and am in no position to initiate.  As well, it has been so many years since my last fleeting encounters with any of the peerage at the parties.  I never imagined myself within a city block of such illustrious guests, much less in such a role!  Me, portraiting them!  A dream, really, for any artist, anywhere.  I suppose I might wake up and start acknowledging that it’s in TWO days.  I have been studying their photographs for several weeks.

He did write (add) under his signature, “Prepare accordingly.”  If he only knew. 

Lounge Suit dress, thankfully.  Tentatively I’ve chosen the midnight blue, for its cut -- perhaps a controversial choice but I keep no black dress clothes. I am not there in the same capacity as any of the others, nor to mix, though.  So.  I will need to arrive in advance due to organisational/security matters.  M and I are to meet for an afternoon tea/snack to talk several things through. Should he dare to pair a waistcoat with a belt, which I would not put past him, I will be forced to remind him that one or the other has to go.  “Shall I help you...." Lexie, stop.  "Dear."  Ha!


	32. The Equinox Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:37

_21\. Mar._

This is my sixth day in a row without any painkillers and my longest stretch so far.  There have been harder moments but I am so grateful to be feeling this well.  It’s enough to flip back in this book and look at the state I was in, even very recently.  The scar is tender.  I’ve been trying some of my better clothes on & I can see that tonight I will not stand to have a starched shirt (the alternative being pin-tucking up the front -- a good fit again) so I am presently looking for a way to deal with that.  There is one option though it may come off as eccentric, Auntie Claudia’s scarf as a sort of cravat, the obvious choice being the Hermès with Ming China florals.  (Is this *really* worth writing down? No, but see, book, where I am?  And I might have gone for a haircut, I didn’t even think of it -- this is decay!  I’ve been seeing blokes, and they've been seeing me, with these tufts.  Have mercy, there's a limit. 

1:42am  J has agreed to marry S!  A red letter event which comes atop the privilege that was this entire evening, spent among the Family & their delightful friends, and the wonderfully talented Russian artists, who moved in nearly inhuman configurations, with such perfect grace and health about them -- all a new ultimate in my experiences, I must say dizzying and spectacular in every way, particularly to be so close that I could see the sweat on their brows and the wild pulses in their necks.  (Of the dancers!  Though some of the guests were also exuberant.)  I am so overwhelmed I can hardly sit still despite the hour.  Anyhow.  They were superb, and their movements sensual and unforgettable. 

I was running quite the mad pulse for a good part of the evening, myself (scared spitless) but did hold up & managed to converse like a human with some of the personages I was sketching. It felt quite out-of-body for much of the night. The details one should keep to himself.  Needless to say, it was far easier once I’d finished the first several portraits & most of the introductions -- and became downright merry after champagne and other drinks had been served.  I might explain that we were in a large ballroom with a gallery for the musicians and a raised, semi-rounded platform for the ballet itself.  I’m so wound up I can’t even concentrate. 

Let’s try a bit of linear narrative for the sake of recalling things once more in great detail.  So, first there were the security issues M had mentioned.  Minimal, for such an event, where M and I were concerned, and though he was not searched, they patted me down and tapped at my sternum with a metal detecting wand, perhaps because I’d forgotten about the small pin I had there under my shirt, and all the steel wiring in my bones -- well.  I yelped before I could stop it -- but it did hurt, I’d not taken anything and the threshold was accordingly lower.  M was incensed, utterly dark, I told him to let it go, and he did not. I don’t want to write the rest down but people did “scatter” and only he knows how far.  Fortunately, word of it didn’t go further.  I was asked to use materials supplied & my pencils were taken back to the car, too.  He told me he would see to several things, asked me if I needed anything more.  Of course I did not just then, so he said he would undertake introductions to the guests in ten minutes and literally vanished with me, mid-question, wondering what to do with myself.  Just then I was marshalled to the left by two ladies who welcomed me and brought me into a side annex from the cloakroom with a large, ornate mirror and toilette table, and told me they’d be making me up for the photographers.  “Just powder, luvie,” one said, and pulled out a wand full of brown mascara while the other draped a cloth over my throat.  I said, “I don’t need that sort of thing, I won’t be photographed...”  “Yes, we all will, this is a wee touch up, it’s nothing at all, look up at the ceiling, please?”  Gracious Mother.  A "wee touch up" on this face consisted of mascara, under-eye corrector, two sorts of powders -- one I’d swear had “shimmer” on the lid, eyeliner (“it’s merely a taupe, hon! Steady!”), they set my eyebrows in a gel, with one of those mouse-sized combs & put a touch of pomade on the worst of the hair (fine).  I wanted to scream, it was that “natural looking”.  Getting it off just now was even more hellish than wearing it, I needed soap for my own eyelashes, which I swear were clicking as loudly as this valve all night!  Bleh.  (Of course I wasn’t the only one in this state, yet nobody dared to powder M -- I must learn to dodge out at such opportune times.  That is a gift!)

Other topics.  So many things.  The danseurs from St. P. performed the R. of S., which was just over half an hour long, and a smaller symphonic group from the Philharmonic played for them.  There were no microphones as the acoustics were excellent, giving the show a chamber-theatre feel, without curtains, or extra decor -- allowing for full appreciation of their dancing, which was just breathtaking.  I can’t even put them into words.  Magnificent, talented, athletic, gorgeous undulating musculature, Lord help me, it was all so pretty, I just can’t. I got startled during the same bit I always do, when the bassoon at the very end repeats the initial melody and the sacrificed girl is held aloft.  The last chord, if we may call it one, always catches me off-guard.  M was sitting next to me and he didn’t react -- so perhaps it wasn’t terribly visible to others when I jumped.  

And then Leonid, who performed the main role in the ballet, and who moved like waves of sound and light.  He knew he was wonderful, and played to us all.

He was sure of himself, for good reason, and had expected a portrait, apparently, but by the time I heard I’d already given over all their lovely paper and pencils.  As it was, I took the liberty of using one page for a quick study of M and his eyes, which were stormier by the hour and had such gravity to them, I couldn’t resist.  I was interrupted four times, however.  “So I see you won’t make something of me tonight,” Leonid finally said, a bit too loudly, and winked, in front of -- Lord, I was mortified, in front of whom he chose to say that. 

By then I’d lost sight of M, and it was getting close to midnight, and I decided I might like to go home.  I excused myself and started to look around for him -- in doing so, I ‘mixed’ even more.  He was having a smoke on a terrace with a nice view of spot-lit gardens, which were filled with security guards and a strolling couple or two.  M was pensive and tense, waiting for news, as he said.  I don’t blame him for being distant, it was certainly important.  I’d have stayed a moment longer to rest my head in the fresh air but he was abrupt, and remarked that I shouldn’t expect him to pay me mind, and I replied, quite truthfully, that I’d not expected him to.  The burden on him. It’s a pity I can’t calm him -- I never know what to say.  Ironically, he wanted to send me in to Leonid -- when I’d only just freed myself of him.  Well, I went for my coat.  And attending the cloakroom was the most welcome of all intruders, S! who’d broken in “to test security” and announce his engagement!!!  Hilarious!  He was staring at my face and the mascara, which I suppose was waterproof, but my eyes were burning from the “taupe” liner.  What a mess, never again, but he'd made me so happy, I lost it.  So I will be a best man in my old age, and I am still trying to process it, it was such a delightful shock, the best news I could imagine hearing, ever: their impending marriage and the pleasure of being asked to be there with them.  He asked me where M was (and as it happened Sophie had just texted me, so drunk, poor thing.  I called back & she apologised for the dating service and explained that it’s been such a good distraction she wanted to give me the same -- I hardly knew what to say to that.  The truth:  dating has probably driven me to a new level of distraction over someone I cannot date.  I didn’t want to explain anything.  I asked after her sister instead.  The account will be inactive by tomorrow or the next day, she promised.) 

Now, I do wish S had asked M, instead -- the moment I spotted M across the room again, it occurred to me that I shouldn’t be so excited.  More on that later on, if I can stay awake to finish writing all this down.  So much!  Well. I reached M first, and he told me the guests were quite pleased with their portraits, enough that they’d have liked to keep them -- unimaginable, but very nice of them.  When I mentioned having seen S, he looked every bit as volatile as he had when the guard had bumped my chest, so I told him to be grateful for the tip off -- he was so furious.  In fact, I was about to ask if the incident earlier on had made the guards nervous about checking things thoroughly, but I suppose that wasn't relevant by then. Most importantly, when S came by they avoided arguing.  Somehow.  S was up for a bit of a laugh, in fact he’d managed to slip a switchblade into my pocket, horrid man, how he got that in I don’t want to know.  M was tense but still civil -- and S lost interest in poking at him soon enough.  It was a relief to hear M tell him “well done” instead of “you’re done” or worse.  I suggested S and I might leave together and M went away quickly, perhaps to advise someone on the hole S had found.  S didn’t say a word to M about his engagement. Granted, it wasn't the best moment to do so. 

Well, in fact I employed a bit of a trick, for my own satisfaction/knowledge.  As we left to go back to the cloakroom, I remarked to S that I’d not taken him to be a traditionalist -- passing over his brother as best man because he is a widower.  “Widower!  You thought his -- ha!” S started to laugh, I should say unbecomingly, particularly in such a setting.  “There isn’t anyone in England -- ha!  Less suited to that station, heeeh!  Which last I checked, heee!  Requires at least one willing party and there we fall flat.”  “Well, don’t be unkind, just because you’re marrying,” I told him, “besides, it’s not too late to ask him.”  “Ask what.”  “Since he doesn’t know you’ve asked me, does he?  Ask him, first.  He of all people should be your best man.”  “He’s done plenty to ensure I would never think to ask.”  “You can reach out, there’s a chance things could turn around.”  “Turn around.”  “Yes, turn around.”  He said, “I meant, turn around and behold -- your dismal grasp of statistics.” He nodded over at M, who was focused closely on his interlocutor, the emissary, who was back and sipping a drink, waving his free hand at M’s shoulder.  S chuckled and darted away, just like that.  I suppose he took his own cab or flew home over the housetops, all on that adrenaline of his, back to his officer.  And I was left with a bit of adrenaline, too.  Not a widower, then.  But stellar.

Anyhow, M soon broke off that monologue, approached me (I might have been staring, I was so distracted) and asked why I hadn’t already taken the car -- I explained that S had just gone back home.  Soon M and I left together, and when I got out at my building he gave me my pencils and I could see he was thinking about the security incidents, again.  “Still in form,” he remarked (referring to a Cinderella/midnight comment on pencils earlier and, in fact, two topics en route).  I laughed and said, “Whereas I have to scrub off mascara after the ball.”  He smiled a bit at that.  “Come to the club tomorrow at 12:30,” he answered.  As soon as I got out of the car, I saw that he reached over on the seat and pulled a stack of files into his lap.  It was nearly one in the morning.

Not that I’m in bed.  Well, I am, writing on my bony knees, here.  But I’m not doing anything concerning the intelligence of our nation, am I.  Is there any intelligence to be had at this hour, I ask?  (Reads the above and shakes head vigorously.) 

I am literally tempted to text him goodnight.

Here we are, Mr. Holmes:  “Per noctem ad lucem.”  Because why even text in English when it’s almost three in the damned morning?!

And.  He’s still awake, poor dear:  “Guilty.”

Goodnight, sleep tight, nobody will kiss you tonight.  That is dreadful, indeed, when you have done so much, for so many people, even for me.

 

_22\. Mar._

Groggy but silly-brained, as it was sunny this morning.  At mass, 11, standing room only at the back and even so, B again attempted to initiate a talk when I have endeavoured time and again to make it clear I will not accept him, nor his apologies, ever.  I was certain he would give this up and now he has started again.  It was my error, yes, but no longer, and I am so disgusted.  My theory is, I look healthier.  He didn’t care for the ill me, no.  Not in the least.

I was still upset when I went to see M but he had such a nice surprise for me, in the form of a letter from Her Grace thanking me for my work, which I suppose the secretary must have prepared ahead of time for the occasion (I should have received it later this week, of course, and we had a laugh over that) but I am truly honoured.  We chatted about the ballet, essentially all the things we might have on site had there been a chance, and he explained short of apologising that the Russian emissary had informed a minister of an incident prior to its occurrence -- which M and others had not had time to overturn.  “What was the implication, Alexander?”  “He wanted to warn you.”  “No, it indicated he was not ‘out of the loop’, so to speak, but in a loop timed to trap him.”  “What for?”  “He will be tried as an informant and imprisoned in Moscow.”  “Oh, no.”  “He provided condolences for deaths of British soldiers who had not yet perished, you see -- a set-up.”  “Did they die, though?”  That is certainly what he’d been waiting to hear, out on that terrace.  What a nightmare.  “I’m afraid so.  Well.  One of their commonly-employed devices, you see, that sort of thing has a political signature about it.  His time had come.”  “Because he was talking to you in front of someone who’d been planted at the party, perhaps?”  “No.  There was one such culprit in the room -- well, it depends how you define ‘planted’.  In fact, he’d been providing intelligence on a certain lady censor from Vladivostok.  Time sensitivity is the stuff of headaches, is it not, Alexander.”  I nodded, with a certain growing urgency in my brain about timing and sensitivity.  “Yes, indeed.”  He shrugged and smiled, a very thin smile, but not cynical in the least, “Consider the post-dated letter of thanks, in your lap, leaked with intent by yours truly to cheer you.”  And I said, “Lovely of you.  Now, how did you guess I’d need cheering, because you’re quite right.”  “I inferred you’d be coming here after church,” he answered, and then, as only he can, he looked at me very, very sharply.  From smile to icepick.  OMG.  “I didn’t go to church because I needed cheering,” I told him.  “Mmm.  Naturally not,” he replied, and I could not tell what he was implying.  I decided to leave it.  But someday I will have to face that better.  He is an atheist, like S, which is heart-breaking to me.

Anyhow.  We were both yawning constantly and pretending not to, and went for a nice lunch.  Can dining with that man be anything but an utter delight?  I hardly feel the restrictions and the change from a groat based existence is pleasant.  Ech, this stomach.  But his humour and company are addictive.  I don’t have to explain a single reference, he is riotously funny when he starts telling stories.  So much like him -- complicated, pointed, and so, so brilliant, subtle.  I asked him if he ever writes because even I like to a bit, and he sort of quieted down after that.

Well, I told him about the frieze I’ve started, and its statements we could say, and about the tulips that are out and whatnot (I don’t know what for), and the refitting that’s going on around my building and on the facade this week -- they’re doing a scheduled cleaning on the old brickwork and conserving some of the bits on the corners (a draughtsman’s terms, there -- I meant cornicing) and he asked me if I’d care to work on my new drawings at the club, in one of the rooms, or in his office, so I can concentrate.  I told him that I would be glad to, in fact he might just talk while I work, as much as he likes.  And so it will be.  I can’t wait for tomorrow.  If he only knew how “suitable” that arrangement is to me he might think twice?  Not that he ever thinks twice -- I should say he thinks once, and constantly, like no one in the world. 

I need a nap.


	33. Behave and observe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:38

_23\. Mar._

It’s nine forty-five.  I can’t get over that I am able to stay awake so late, now.  The drawback being the additional hours of thinking things I should not.  For instance, that there are advantages to being alone but as of late I cannot remember what they are.  I suppose that one would be that when I am alone, I can better pretend to be his, that he is waiting for me in his office, or at home in the evening, and I am being the stubborn one.

Such a charming person but so overworked.  I don’t see how S can say his brother is “lazy and desk-borne” when he attends at least fifteen meetings a week, sometimes far more during which he is reading piles of other things.  (He claims that there are peak months, which are Jan., Feb., and Mar.  Apr. is often a tapering off period, after which nobody does much until Sept., Oct. and Nov.  December is a “dead” month, as are May, June, July, and August, when people are vacationing at intervals and cannot be gathered together for any significant decision making processes.) 

On an unrelated sartorial note, he has asked me to come tomorrow in a suit and tie, perhaps for lunch, after I’ve seen S. 

 

 _24\. Mar._

I was at Baker Street this morning (was it really today?  Mercy!) talking about some of the wedding plans (S is considering the Glen Burns, which is on a list of approved sites in Westm.) and to help him rehearse the upcoming presentation in Germany.  It’s perfect now and provided he is able to avoid all that grimacing when he asks his audience if there are questions, it will be a world-class talk.  Truly excellent scholarship and a useful model, too.  However, while we were chatting away about clothes and so on he got a text from J that he’d chosen M as best man.  I was so pleased over what I think was a wise decision on J’s part.  S shouted that only I would "defend them both” over it.  Over the right thing?  I pointed out that *he* should be the first to defend them both!  Moreover, he said there were no guests in the plans -- meaning he would have left M out of it. Out of spite over Lord knows what -- obviously J saw fit to step around his/their resentments and invite him instead of a friend, exempli gratia that gorgeous silver-haired DI from NSY. 

S didn’t take kindly to my (jokes!) about an after-wedding “tradition” between witnesses and I finally informed him that I don’t plan to shag M, and I actually can’t even really count on myself to X, which did shut him up.  Not long after all this he got another text and sort of balked and told me I should go to the toilet and sneak out the kitchen door, because J was coming up the stairs -- OMG, was he ever.  That, dear book of mine, could never be acted for a camera:  a hot officer, just come home to his man who was petulantly standing & strumming a violin, shirt coming unbuttoned on its own, by the living room table.  What a scene, honestly.  Add J’s voice.  He was so keen, not to say Horny As All Hell (how he managed to take stairs quickly?  Months of practise?) and literally growled at S, ran his thumb over his prick and said, “you’re bloody hot...I took the afternoon off...” and S was sort of like (eyes wide), “ahhhmm...best man...” and J, who seemed determined to make up for that (he is a Captain -- strategy well-chosen, sir, hats off to thee!) said sth like, “I’ve been thinking about...dragging you for a fuck...” & I was trying to get out of there before he either took S in his mouth right then or pulled him my way.  Ah, well, S is a lucky one. 

So all that, dear volume, left me in a state.  I don’t know what Rodney was thinking when he drove up a moment later.  (Will he ever see me with a normal look on my face?)  That gentle soul drove me straight to see M but I was not entirely able to think for the first quarter hour.  I kept my jacket buttoned like a bashful teenager when I sat down, which he must have seen.  Of course, he had to be wearing a beautiful waistcoat, high buttoned with an unusual crossover on the points in front, that worked like road signs on errant eyes.  Drape, &c.  And a tie in nearly the same coppery brown as his hair, Lexie...Lexie Bertie, stop.  He was so striking.  He'd asked me to come dressed in a suit & I was sort of waiting to see why, winding myself up.

Book, I don't even know where to start about the rest. 

I tried to draw a bit on what I’d left in his office, and could not focus.   Shall we say it wasn’t the oolong that was making me jumpy, and worse, M glanced me over and frowned.  That’s about when he asked if I’d spoken to J.  I told him I had not, no, and went red in the face.  Hell!  He raised an eyebrow and picked up something else to read aloud.  Perhaps he knows -- the surveillance.  He might know, but I should hope -- OMG.  So I mentioned the fact of J’s text (the first one!) thus:  “We hardly have enough time to -- well.”  “We don't?" he asked.  (No.  Yes.)  (Lexie, stop!)  “I was with S when J wrote him about his choice of best man.”  “Yes.”  “So...right.”  “Remarkable.”  “What is?”  “That you emerged from yet another sonic event,” he said, referring at least in part to the worst of the drilling going on in the facade of my building, a shrieking grinding dental-chair marrow-deep sound.  Yes, I may be exaggerating.  “Unscathed,” he added, waving and then rubbing circles around his eyes, as he does with his thumb and middle finger when he has a headache coming on.  I really can’t stop this thought anymore:  You are remarkable.  I could have stated it, simply.  One doesn’t.  How I was furious that “one doesn’t”.  All the barriers.  Mercy, I just wanted to pet his temples for him, poor man.  I forced myself to look at (his lapel, I swear), and started, “Well.  In fact, I’ve been meaning to ask you --”  “Naturally, I’ll introduce you to someone.  It's wedding season, after all.”  I said, “Sorry?”  And he was just on the edge of a smile.  "Unless you have a codger in reserve?" he added. "Well --" I sort of answered, as my grey head worked that over all wrong. And he watched that, blast. "Alexander, you won’t find an appointment anywhere on Savile Row until mid-August,” he explained, which should not have been necessary -- he was either teasing me, or I was being more than pathetic. My money’s on the latter, and yours, beautiful book, should be, as well.  So -- resolved, that I will meet “Carter”, one of his tailors.  However, I plan to take in photographs of Henry’s (codger-worthy) suit, which I adore for its cut, and ask for something similar to it.  I fancy green, lately.  I’ll even have racing-green shoes, soon, from Vilnius -- not in time for this occasion, but even so.  Anyhow.  No waistcoat, as I see I will not bear anything more than a low cardigan buttoned over this scar for some time.  It’s mostly ghost pain now but it is still a signal that is hard to ignore when it matters.  And when does it matter?  Oh, dear.  When my pulse is up and the valve is so damned loud.

M remarked that spring had sprung, “oh bother” ha!  That set off a needless reference but he claimed I have a “tolerable” voice.  (Yes, Darcy.  When living with Henry Villiers, one sings “tolerably” by comparison.)  I kept thinking about what S had said, earlier on.  I don’t want to write everything here, because it was quite rude, but he actually added to what he’d said at the Equinox Party on Saturday, and literally sneered that M “would never want” me, or anyone, that it’s no “deficiency” of mine.  He also said that I want to “fly into the sun” -- when I have no intention of throwing myself in the way of his brother, if that’s what he is implying -- and the indictment that I might find someone who “at least notices” my presence in a room, because M is “the least companionable man” I could have the misfortune of spending time with, was painful.  This was rolling through my head while I was sitting in front of him & listening to him read off a classified description of an installation which has recently run out of well-water and will be moved to a marginally-less-protected location, in the mountains (Afghanistan) -- opening the way for a competing cell to move in -- it was so difficult to follow, but why “least companionable” for all that?  It is enough that my heart rate increases (he can hear it) and he dockets it, rather inconveniently.  So perhaps he does not notice exactly what I want him to (not that I can even define that, right now) but it cannot be said that he ignores me in a room. 

After thinking of all that:  imagine that once I had myself under control a bit, M suddenly set his work aside, pulled out his watch and announced he was going to the MOD.  He wanted me to go along.  I told him it wasn’t really my world and he kindly reminded me I’d nowhere better to be.  And he gave me an access card for vetted civilian experts.  I could have screamed.  But one doesn't.  No.  (Does he know I have a raging secret-agent kink?  Not good.  Now, if he had one for vain, gutter-minded Catholic draughtsmen with atrial fibrillation, we’d have something to go on.  Hi, dear.)  Ah, and add bleeding:  it took at least twice as long as usual for the smallest nick to stop gushing on the side of my finger -- after messing about with something I shouldn’t have (!) I discovered that a sizeable knife pops out of that umbrella he takes everywhere -- the same one he had in his hand when we met (he was tapping it with those long, lovely fingers of his -- perhaps he wanted to spear me on it?)  He even takes that blasted thing to B. Palace, I know he does!  And he got in just fine today, at our Ministry.  He thinks that’s hilarious.  And God help me, I thought it was hot.  Anyhow, they opened everything for me & I acted the part.  As soon as people saw who I was with:  silence & obsequiousness.  I was trying not to react to it.  I should say, I didn’t want to seem surprised -- because I wasn’t.    

As I was expected to “behave and observe”, I made a study of the trail of responses he left behind while he spent several hours in his “absorbing” mode -- where he literally takes in everything while giving off nothing, meaning zero indication of approval or disapprobation, no clear sign of interest.  Nothing.  Not even boredom or impatience, which brims in him, if you know what to look for.  It makes even professional, experienced (male) staff so nervous they stammer, make slips in wording, fumble papers or drop things.  Others -- particularly ladies -- become defensive and hostile, while looking for what they’ve done wrong.  Still others laugh and try to lighten the mood.  Some try to mirror him.  For the most part, they do not want to interact.  None of that amuses him (as it would S, for sure).  I suppose I’d imagined it does amuse him.  But it merely happens.  He remains perfectly disinterested. 

It was great fun.  All that was missing, really, was a service pistol, a blow-job and a cocktail -- none of which I’d have handled properly, anyhow.  I was feeling a bit crazed, to be honest, by the time we left.  The whole experience was like a dream, but I don’t even know where to start describing what we did, there.  The actual meeting at the MOD was a “provocation” from his side, and in so many ways it’s hard to list them all.  I can’t believe he’s letting me keep this card!  I can just go in there, as a civilian “expert” (on whatever I choose).  OMG.  Moreover, it has a photograph of me in a suit and tie -- taken in haste, in August, near the Oxford Circus station, when I was about to leave for Austria, for the personnel file/IDs on site.  How he got it, I’ve no idea.  Hell.  This man.  And I’ve no idea what he has done to have such far-reaching influence but his ability to sort, filter, cut, process, and summarise so much so quickly, for so many years, must have had an accumulated effect on our government to where he is lodged deeply within it, indeed.


	34. Fitting

_25\. Mar._

At cardio today and got shouted at by an NHS nurse over blood work in a hallway off the waiting room -- I haven’t gone in to check my INR for over two weeks, close to three, as I’d been given one home test -- admittedly, I let it slide.  Unwise, very, since the nurses stopped coming round after the sixth/seventh week. “And you haven't got a phone? Couldn’t reschedule?  Your fault?  Good you know -- but you make it *our* problem if you come in here, in critical, with a clot in your heart or your leg because you were feeling *plucky* and quit monitoring your INR -- where is your booklet?  Sure, taking time for testing isn’t fun for any of us.  Where’s responsibility, here?”  Short of refusing to lead me to the technician, but.  One of the young ladies from reception hurried over, tapped her and whispered something.  The nurse gave me a one-over & went absolutely red. “Sir,” the receptionist said, “If you’d kindly wait a moment more.”  A second nurse came on the scene and took me in for a lab stab herself, rushed off with the tubes, and that was the end of that.  Neither of them would look me in the face.  No idea what happened, there.  

The INR was a bit high -- we want it ~ 2.5. Still the apple-green pills.  I may opt for home-tests, that was all a bit disconcerting.  As was the drilling at home, though it was sporadic enough to be bearable.  I texted with S and the GB club is confirmed as their venue.  I finally had to call.  1) S plans "to ensure" they will not be wearing similar clothes.  2) No preferred colours.  3) No waistcoat necessary "unless one is aiming for prattish propriety in which case he shouldn't feel the need to turn up."  (Mercy.) 4) He only cares that my writing hand is "in form".  

OMG, I just realised something.  It's like when he gave me Henry's watch -- this sigh + "ov-er-wound" -- oh Lord, does he imagine I wank constantly?  I can't win.  Hand in form, hand not in form.  Book, don't!

 

_26\. Mar._

After a rather confounding but brief meeting with three members of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in a side library, during which I listened and dug my fingertips into my palms (OMG, M told them off for their draft of a Human Rights report due to a certain omission and explained how each man’s career would be affected by which repercussions/interests), we went on to Mayfair to his 2 tailors’ atelier. Again, thinking of S, I fail to see the sexiness of such a place, particularly the dressing-down-for-measurements bit. Carter Sawyer attended to us both. M, not surprisingly, was focused on the design of the waistcoat above all, as he thinks in terms of his watch. He tried on a model/example piece in beige hounds-tooth and instead of holding my tongue as I might have, I told him, “Higher, at least two or three inches, with that cut you draw the eye downward.” Both of them looked at me. “To your stomach,” I said. The tailor shrugged and folded his arms and M turned his eyes to the mirror like he wanted to shatter it with a look. (It refused him -- mirrors are well-seasoned in these matters.) I clarified because I suddenly remembered the “World War of Sweets”: “Not that your middle offends in the least, of course, but why not direct the gaze upward? The one you had recently was better, a pale copper glen, precisely because it was higher-buttoned.” “Vince cut it,” Carter said, at the edge of slighted. “Yes, sir, but this one,” I said, “is for a wedding, you see.” The man seemed *flattered* to hear that -- who wouldn’t be?  And M gave me a look I couldn't decode, though not an openly-murderous one.  I just didn’t want Carter to feel bad.  In fact he’s quite the artisan yet needs approval, like we all do.  Well, M didn’t say anything either way.  I left to peruse the ties and cravats while he had his fitting, and I looked out at the passers-by.  One lady smiled back.  One of the few not looking down at a screen as she walked.

When it was my turn I explained I wanted green, for the same morning civil wedding in a club setting.  The tailor suggested an olive tweed, quite a perfect choice.  “Because I plan to wear it often.  It’s nothing to do with economy, I wish it were.  No, one-ceremony suits make me uneasy,” I said, and Carter laughed so hard he lost the chalk in his fingers, which he was holding a bit like a fag.  Our orders are so last-minute I'm surprised they'll manage, though M assures me they shall.  Manage.

One funny thing, though. In that setting, I remembered (again, it constantly slips my mind -- It’s been warmer) that he's had my salmon and blue scarf for a couple of weeks.  When we were back at the D. I asked about it.  He looked at me like I’d accused him of sedition, sniffed and offered me one of a few orange taffy sweets he had from somewhere in Lebanon, which he was in the middle of taking out of a beautiful little green box.  It occurred to me how infrequently he forgets anything.  “So,” I said, “may I have it back, please?”  “No --”  “Right, if you fancy it, please keep it, the salmon would  --”  “No!  Well.  It’s at my house.”  (Really?)  “I see. So, under what circumstances had you planned to give it back?”  That was certainly pushing things, but it was so funny -- he raised his brows and muttered something about “I’ve absolutely no idea.” He’s unbelievably sweet when he’s caught. “Now, take one,” he said, and waved at the taffies.  (Like, Chew & shut up.)  Ha! 

I can’t stop imagining, tonight.  This is partially S’s fault, for mentioning his tailor’s as a sort of meeting hub, which I don’t want to think about -- being on a pedestal with someone wielding pins around me has never appealed to me much.  

 

_27\. Mar._

Such a lovely day, outdoors. I regretted he wouldn’t walk with me a bit. Even so, over lunch there were so many delightful things and I cannot even remember what we spent so many hours talking about in the afternoon, it was densely interconnected as only he can present events and ideas, and that is what I tried to pour into what I was inking in, dozens of little workers, each entirely dependent on the next, for their cues. He fell very quiet by mid-afternoon, though, and I forgot myself again and started singing under my breath. Of course I stopped it, Lord, how embarrassing -- like in the shop at Christmas. “Sorry."  "Why."  "‘Tolerable’ isn’t synonymous with ‘wanted’, is it,” I remarked, referring perhaps too transparently to myself, that I wasn’t sure if I should go home, leave him alone, because I really cannot tell how long I should stay on. He looked up at that and glared, then shuttered up.  My heart started to click more in my chest, it was so loud right then in that office, and I was so tired of it.  I wish I were -- what they said I’d be -- among the ones who hear that sound and rejoice in it before ignoring it and then ceasing to hear it altogether.

S and J are in Passau today for the conference. OMG, Salzburg afterward. Such a nice place for a romantic weekend, of fantastic shags.  I hope I will go there someday.  Though it seems I’m missing the other half in more ways than one.  Back to slack.  I've been reading and it's not necessarily the pills, hard to determine.  Indeed.  Hell.

 

_28\. Mar._

Today was pleasant, things carefully arranged at lunch, once again -- to him it isn’t “careful” but merely that comprehensive attention.  When you talk to him more, you can see that he does not look at much of anything in isolation, as I once mentioned to him in anger, earlier in our acquaintance.  There is a whole set of interrelated thoughts present at any given time -- normal to him, and something that would make me scream after two minutes of frustration at the inability to untangle what I needed most, when, and for whom.  That is how he functions by default. Now I've come to wonder why anyone (looking at you, S) wouldn’t esteem him all the higher, for being so accomplished in so many areas, not losing his head over all that information and detail, and working as hard as he does for a country that should not have need for such a person but has fallen to such depths of internal chaos -- which has compromised itself in Europe, and beyond, so many times.  If anyone knew, abroad, what M does, OMG, the danger to him, personally.  Pressure points, he calls those bits of knowledge. He seems to dislike the expression “pressure point” for reasons of his own.  I'm not about to ask why. 

 

_29\. Mar._

Palm Sunday, and at mass the homily was on the spectre of slander just prior to the crucifixion of Our Lord, of course.  And.  I cannot believe it, even now -- that chat overheard at the font.  During the announcements afterward Father O. warned against throwing stones.  My hands are still shaking like mad. B has been arrested! It happened on Thursday, in fact.  What timing, just before the holiday, such humiliation to a man of the cloth, to spend Easter behind bars.  I’ve googled & it was underage pornography, of all horrors, films and photographs, according to the BBC, and active membership in lurid chat-rooms, all of which he denies.  Moreover, it appears he may have threatened someone in the congregation -- by this I refer to blackmailing over an affair.  Lord, bring justice.  Forgive me for the indifference I feel toward his situation, but I am still too angry to muster anything better.  I feel infected.  I am so disgusted that I ever allowed that -- because I did permit him to touch me and flatter me.  Can a man make a worse slip in judgement?  Depression is no excuse for succumbing -- and fate has seen to it that nobody has touched me, since.  Need I add another word tonight?


	35. Spring observer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [TW: mention of dub-con film in last paragraph]

_31\. Mar._

M seems to sleep badly.  Dipping into that carafe, again, unless he has regular guests to his office with whom he shares that one tumbler (S has described M as O/C, though I’ve not seen it. Imagine a context for a single shared glass: “Those other tumblers are made of sugar / I don’t like doing the washing up / Not herpes simplex but a vitamin deficiency going by the rough skin on the bridge of your nose, we can share, no worries”).  Hm.  I worry about him, in fact.  For all that capacity to reason, he is not a self-renewing spring. Of course not, we are only men, after all & we all need constants in life. I feel so sorry that he goes about all that alone.  I would put my arms around him and tell him he doesn’t need that awful stuff to get by.  But if we were any closer than that desktop and our chair-widths I might not stop myself saying things.  That I care, that I have feelings and I don’t know where to put them.  It’s like placing an awkward object on a shelf, next to others which are already teetering and slipping when I as much as glance up at them. 

Develop that metaphor without breaking down tonight.  To hell with this.  

I might add to the above that my flat needs cleaning, immediately.  I have to find someone to help for a day or two.  The dust has been unbearable and it has got in everything.

Plodding along on this frieze of seven.  In fact I wish I represented something more (a larger body of more recognisable work).  I’ve attempted to organise what's left of my earlier drawings into files (physical and digital, continuing what I started perhaps in Nov.) and remembered this morning when I’d first started instructing S on drawing, he'd laughed at my illustrations and CAD work -- I nearly gave up that entire enterprise on the spot, with him, I was so f’ed off at him.  I think he knew it, too.  And then there was M, who replied “Hardly” when I said I was a draughtsman, seemingly mistaking me for a psychologist.  They saw (perhaps many have but were less inclined to point it out) that I might have done more by now.  Were I not provided for by accident of birth (some call it “fortune”) and if I’d earned on my own work, I’d have been ruined years ago (I’d not have afforded all the meds and lying about), or would have been long buried by now.  One should remember that.

 

_01\. Apr._

S with headache, didn’t come by.  May see him the day after tomorrow at B. St.

Arrhythmia.  The 1st this long since the s., hit at dinner in kitchen, at six, couldn’t finish.  Trying to be calm, in bed, now.  Text from M, re. roots and wings, funny cross ref. to Goethe, discussed yest. -- “Zwei Dinge sollen Kinder von ihren Eltern bekommen: Wurzeln und Flügel” -- the flee/roost pairing.  So happy to have sth from M just then but he dislikes texts.  I nearly called to hear him.  But what/say:  Yes, well, fine, crying like a complete idiot, disregard, disregard...g.n., dear.  Pls don’t drink that Scheiss tonight.

Texted w/ S re. wedding everything’s OK w/ headache, will come by tom./paint

So tired.

 

_02\. Apr._

SACMILL -- easy to remember as advisory non-departmental public bodies go.  We visited several experts from a committee/panel, today.  One particular advising non-departmental body appeared in dove grey with the most exquisite rose and slate tie -- when a man wears a flash of pink it works on me something mad.  It is not my “artistic leanings” regarding colour (-- that would be flattering myself, in place of admitting that the warmth of spring is reaching forth for one's cock -- a narrative from a statue in certain book on homoerotic art which S has yet to give back to me -- well, I always found it ‘instructive’, as well).  No, this is something far less evolved.  In a bizarre string of melodious and absurd thoughts that came to mind as M and I were walking down a corridor side by side, that I would belt out a G&S song, punitively, in the direction of anyone who claims a ginger can’t pull off anything madder-rose or lighter. 

“Are you well?” M said, when I coughed back a laugh as he described a MODREC recommendation on human participants in field data gathering and how it was about to be flouted by a particular researcher.  And he seemed rested today, at last. His sharpness was all there -- he was literally glittering with it.  Ech, knowing what he had in his hand, under that curved handle, which he was rubbing a palm over idly, not with impatience this time but with something closer to keenness, really, while we were speaking (Lord, an exaggeration -- I was standing, watching M hold forth) about “less lethal” measures of defence capacity!  Ha, with a bodkin in his hand.  I was presented to the panel members as an observer.   Indeed, I performed my function:  partway through I realised I’d been staring down and letting my mind go a bit naughty over that long, soft (probably) palm of his.  I am completely unresponsive at home and cannot concentrate, and even the images that once led me along are losing their crispness despite the sunny mornings of late.  Other things encroach.  Shall I be more blunt?  Another day.  For now shall we say I am finished frustrating myself for a second time, on paper.

There was a conference on world currencies and fixing today in Luxembourg and he’d been at a parliament sitting & a meeting on the same subject yesterday in Cambridge. So I said, “Since you mentioned Luxembourg, S said I should ask you about an aquarium, one of these times?  In the context of Luxembourg?”  He replied, “In fact, no link exists between them.”  Even so, he wouldn’t talk for almost half an hour.  So I didn’t ask anything more.  No doubt one poisoned the other’s fish in childhood?  One never knows.  Finally I asked if I should go and leave him alone and he shot back, “Absolutely not.”  Affronted?

 

_03\. Apr._

Visited S who explained he has ignored most emails re. cases for months but once in a while will solve over the phone or write sth back.  Suddenly he rubbed his hands together and said, “Well.  You mentioned porn blogs?”  “Did I?  I thought I just asked for a glass of water.  So you've unearthed subtext?” I said.  “In January!” he answered.  “Yes, and you still haven’t -- made good on either.”  He rolled his eyes and snorted on his way into the kitchen.  “Just a moment.  No cranberry for you, no.  That was on page sixteen of your booklet.”  “Possibly.”  “Appointment while I was in Passau?”  “Indeed.  All fine.”  He hurrumphed.  I told him, “By the way, I meant ‘amorous traveler who used to blog a bit’, not -- ‘porn blogs’ -- why do you...ask...?”  

(Hell!  I’m not entirely over that little scene that I saw in that very room last time -- and here, a textbook gambit / prelude to incomplete blow-jobs and five minutes of randomised ‘oh fahhhhh yeaahh’.  He felt it, too, because he grinned at me.)  “Alex, I need an opinion on a film,” he said, and had the nerve to lick his lips.  Once he was convinced I was sufficiently embarrassed (ha! OMG, I was dying while he clicked around without any comment, though some horrid things were happening in the margins -- ‘hot-n-straight eager 18yr holes’ &c, Gracious Peter) he showed me sth, part of a case.  He doesn’t want to take it because of the timing and issue at hand (he doesn’t want to involve J right now).  But a man has reported that he was drugged and filmed in a “massage” scenario -- we watched it in fragments three times, and indeed, he had a satin mask over his eyes so it was impossible to see how (not) alert he was but he was hardly moving in spite of ‘action’ taking place, involving three unprotected blokes as ‘masseurs’.  So horrifying and S shrugged.  “You agree he wouldn’t have lain prostrate &c.  Consider the way his face was turned about, always by one of them.  No nervous reactions in the hands or toes.”  I was sort of standing at the side of their table and looking on & it occurred to me that M has that room under surveillance.  I got this rush to my stomach.  “Please, just give it over to the police,” I said.  “Besides, J will come home and what will you say -- ‘Hi sweetheart, Alex and I are watching dodgy masseurs, but it’s for a case.’”  “Mmffff.  ‘Sweetheart’,” he intoned, with another impatient eye-thing.  How anyone can waste such lovely eyes on lengthy, sweeping eyerolls like those, is anyone's guess.  M is even worse.   “What, dear.  Have you even planned your trip?”  “Trip.  Ah -- the sex holiday?”  “Seeing as you just had one, room for confusion.  Your.  Blasted.  Honeymoon.”  “Of course.  Nnnno.  Nnnnorfolk?”  He got pink.  "So are we painting?" I asked.  "Plan something, honestly!"


	36. Danz danz and duck roses

_04\. Apr._

I'd asked S if he knew any good cleaners in London -- he got quite wound up and pleased.  “Four dozen or so!  When?”  You just never know.  He came to my house at exactly 8 this morning with a thermos of his latest sort of barley-groat creation and with a svelte blonde Ukrainian lady in tow -- nearly a full foot shorter than us, with lovely bone structure and the wildest glittery eye-makeup ever.  No taupe for Ola (from Oleksandra).  She hardly spoke a word of English (we got by in a bit of primary-school German).  S gave her a few pointers in Russian, and she went to the toilet to put up her hair -- she was in a sort of pink tracksuit with “e-z-duz-it” in silver gothic text over her bottom (should I have told her what that implies? one never knows how).  S told me to give her *bottomless* (emphatically -- did he imagine...? OMG) mugs of sweet tea & feed her a decent meal at noon. And disappeared out the door with a Cheshire grin. Ola sort of nodded at the cleaning supplies I’d given her, put ear-buds in, and literally took the living room apart, pushing furniture all over the place as she hoovered, scrubbed, wiped, and hummed off-key, something manic.  I tried to help and she waved a finger at me to the beat of her music and shooed me aside.  (Thus I mainly played the role of stunned elder uncle.)  She attacked the ghastly ‘pit of despair’ which is my desk.  So much unfinished work -- I wanted to scream but I’d have scared her -- or not?  I put it all in a stack:  a distressing reminder of my sloth of the last year or two, in paper form.  Arrgh.  We ate poached eggs, baked sweet potatoes, some groats and cooked carrots without salt which she poured unapologetically over everything, in smiley silence.  It was nice to have someone to eat with because lately I’ve enjoyed lunching across from someone again, very much.  Like Grandmother V would say, “one is as readily trained toward pleasantries as the vine to the sun.”  Indeed, when your companion is -- so pleasant as to spoil one, let's be honest. ("Lexie, stay clear of those who indulge in rich foods in questionable company, examine better why they do so!”)  Spoken to the family's aspiring wallflower.  Ah, well.

Ola seemed interested in my drawings so I drew her portrait while she was eating.  She said it will be for her fiancé who is in Norway, building.  She jumped up and asked for yet another big mug of tea w/ sugar and continued buzzing about like a hummingbird in my bedroom, scrubbing down the windows inside and out (“Danz danz kohhm on yeh, behbee lalalala kohhhm on moooof eet up yo”) while I tried to stack books and papers without having another attack, mainly from shame.  I am so out of condition, no danz-danz, here.  Walks (strolls) are not proving to be enough, this time.  Well.  My flat has not looked this nice in at least a year. Pathetic, much like the fact that I’m writing so much about it, but really, it was a funny day.  And I feel I should and could invite people, now.  A person.

 

_05\. Apr._

The suit is superb. I may have been moved, I'm not telling.  And Carter is a tactful man.   Really, though, I doubt I’d have found a suit of similar cut off the peg and had it altered in so little time, ever.  Certainly not of that fine tweed. It will be lined and ready to pick up by Monday evening but I will get it another day, perhaps.  I saw the jacket for M’s on a dress form, a nearly-black midnight blue in a delicate grey pinstripe.  The man himself has been at Oxford for two days, returning tomorrow evening.  I texted to thank him for arranging such a marvellous artisan tailor for me and asked re. O.  He replied:  “You're welcome.  Dargie’s yellows in last daffodils yet too early for fritillaries in CCM.  MH.”  It took me a bit of rooting about to understand he meant Christ Church Meadows, of course.  Resting, at least enough to notice the flowers.  Good, good, you dear man. 

I love daffodils so much. David disliked the smell of bulb flowers, particularly hyacinths, because they gave him instant headaches. That was the main reason I kept them all over in my room every spring.  An excellent deterrent.  If he smelled my iris water today he’d give me a sizeable berth, for sure.  Sometimes the thought of that makes me laugh. "Sodding irises! Back off!"

21:17 OMG M remembered my remark about that portrait of Her Majesty.  I just put two and two together.  Wake up, Lexie.

_06\. Apr._

Easter day -- the mystery and promise of the Resurrection!  The chatting at the font about B.  I wish people wouldn’t talk so much about it. Six days to the wedding!

_07\. Apr._

Drawing, a bit bleary eyed.  I have just received a card from M with an invitation to tea tomorrow afternoon.  It will be a pleasure, as I wrote, to see him again and talk for a bit.  I have rarely penned such understatements, dear volume. I generally err the other way.

_08\. Apr._

Rodney had already picked up my finished suit for me when he took me home after tea.  That is so considerate.  I will also need to speak to Carter Sawyer in the morning as I’d planned to give him my compliments, in person.  I’ve had a better look at both garments -- brilliant, not that I’d expect anything less.  And their lining, I’ve just come to know in a series of texts, was chosen sight unseen by my friend after I’d left, as I’d forgotten to state which sort, beyond a helpful “green...”  (Where was my head -- lately I am capable of the most ridiculous oversights.  Do either of those tailors sleep, I wonder?)  Thus the insides of all the pockets of my olive tweed are lined and edged in a bold oxblood and chartreuse stripe, and the rest in a chartreuse with tiny diamond-shaped ticking.  It’s perfect -- how could he know I adore olive and chartreuse together?  And the tie suggests itself -- no need to look for any other:  the broad chartreuse and caramel, one of Henry’s I’ve always loved.  Besides, it feels appropriate to have a bit of him along on that day -- especially with this suit.  That it’s modelled on his, that I am going to such a wedding, and in this honoured role.  This reads a bit maudlin but Henry was the closest thing to a father I had even if too briefly. And he loved Eustace to the end. All of it is wound up together in my heart very tightly. 

Tea was a bit short, as M had a meeting.  We talked about Oxford, socks, shades of yellow, and the histories of pigments.  Ha.  I steered that subject toward the blues and away from the oxides. Because yes, he really is that good at deductions.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------

[Serpentynka here. This was originally a post, elsewhere, called "'65 Questions you are not used to, with Alexander Nussbaum'".  The link broke and this is where it belongs, time-wise, as it is right before the Johnlock wedding.]

 

65 QUESTIONS YOU AREN'T USED TO

 

  1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you?



I would tend to see that as a sign I need to get out more.  In fact, though, I have occasionally worried that others have forgotten about me.  Also a sign I need to pull myself up.

 

  1. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you?



The reason for the darkness determines my answer.  Having spent most of my life in Westminster I have rarely been in total darkness.  The darkness you experience when in that twilight phase after an operation is a five.  What’s the next question.

 

  1. The person you would never want to meet?



That has changed over the years.  Well.  My father.  Because I wouldn’t know what to say and it would hurt us both.  I suspect he left on account of my illness.  The timing suggests so.  Though nobody would confirm that.

 

  1. What is your favorite word?



And.  For the inclusion and potential in it.

 

  1. If you were a type of tree, what would you be?



Weeping willow.  No.  I’ve no idea, perhaps a birch?  I’m quite pale, side eyes, I don’t know.

 

  1. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought?



 "Now that's better."

 

  1. What shirt are you wearing?



Shirt?  Joking.  In fact, my favourite, an older Oxford cloth shirt with no collar and a half-placket.  A bit folky.  I bought it in Camden Town many years ago before a certain first date.

 

  1. What do you label yourself as?



Label, meaning ‘declare’?  That is a difficult area.  The most obvious is that I’m gay, a label that does nothing to explain how I reached that understanding about myself, what it meant to others, or would have meant, and how it defines me in my relationship with a person who is not -- strictly speaking -- gay, as I am.

 

  1. Bright room or dark room?



Bright room.  All the better to see...what I am doing.  Ahem.

 

  1. What were you doing at midnight last night?



I was sleeping alone, hoping to be awakened.

 

  1. Favorite age you’ve been so far?



Thirty.

 

  1. Who told you they loved you last?



My Carly, nine years ago, just before he left for Sri Lanka, at Heathrow.  Which is not to say I don’t feel loved, now, but it is not openly expressed in as many words.  Well.  Silly question.

 

  1. Your worst enemy?



Certainly myself.

 

  1. What is your current desktop picture?



Daniel Craig in black and white, holding a demitasse, in glasses similar to mine.  I like to pretend he’s borrowing them.  Sorry.

 

  1. Do you like someone?



Like, like?  Or just like?  I like people to various extents and this is a strange thing to ask at a certain point.

 

  1. The last song you listened to?



A Day Without Me by U2 a bit earlier on.  Going through some of David’s albums.  He had good taste in music.

 

  1. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?



What a horrible thing to ask people, as if they should say “Hitler” or “My Hitlerite landlord”.  Have you any idea what is happening in market squares, bunkers, mountain villages -- the terror among ordinary people who are led against their will, by wild packs of bloodthirsty, power-mad militants for instance?

 

  1. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?



Again, why provoke people to imagine taking out their anger in such a random fashion?

 

  1. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do?



Sorry, those questions were quite upsetting and I don’t know how to answer this one, either.

 

  1. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional)



As for the latter, I should say so.  A number of men have claimed I have nice eyes but that is before they’ve -- sorry, that didn’t sound good.

 

  1. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do?



I would look like my Mum, so not terribly different.  It would be a nice chance to do a bit of research so perhaps I’d try to have an interview, or go to a pub, or a shop somewhere, and see how I am treated.  I think despite everything, I still have it easier as a gay man than many women do, simply because I can go in for “straight acting” whenever I want and nobody pays attention or starts making exceptions.  It’s very unfair.

 

  1. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it?



I could tell you but then I’d have to seduce you.  No, come on, these questions are making me talk like a pervert.

 

  1. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of?



Violence, transfusion valves, small spaces, crowds.  Nothing unique, there.

 

  1. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal.



Oh, my.  [-]

 

  1. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it?



I should have guessed this was a list of American origins.  It has that “building rapport” feel to it.  I suppose I should say something noble but I really need some of those special socks so I don’t end up with necrosis in my toes.  Oh, that’s a unique fear. 

 

  1. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go?



I’d go anywhere if Mycroft Holmes were there, too.

 

  1. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be?



Oh, Lord.  I can’t drink, and I don’t want to.  In fact, this is a delicate area.  Next question, please.

 

  1. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?



Respect each other’s skills and limitations.

 

  1. What is your favorite expletive?



I have a terrible habit of invocation and it’s nothing to do with “favourites”.

 

  1. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno?



This would be the Villiers genealogy, again.

 

  1. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?



Don’t.

 

  1. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world!



Now I am positive this was written by an American.  Well.  Perhaps Switzerland or Austria.

 

  1. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back?



Anyone who has lost someone they love would find this very upsetting.

 

  1. What was your last dream about?



Carly.

 

  1. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]?



interviewee?  Not really, I’m afraid.

 

  1. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital?



I have.

 

  1. Have you ever built a snowman?



I built a snow cat with my Mum.  We rarely had enough snow, so the one time we got some, we built one that was supposed to be the Sphinx but the headdress wouldn’t stay up.

 

  1. What is the color of your socks?



Now?  Green.

 

  1. What type of music do you like?



I’m an eighties throwback.  I adore Joy Division, Genesis, U2, David Gahan’s voice in anything, and Pink Floyd.  I like classical very much but I am not always able to listen to it without feeling pulled about by it.  When music has words I can tell myself it is about someone else.

 

  1. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?



Sunrises, though it depends on why I am looking at one.  And with whom.

 

  1. What is your favorite milkshake flavor?



I don’t care for them.

 

  1. What football team do you support? (I will answer in terms of American football as well as soccer)



Oh, dear.  This is not my strong point.  You might ask me something else.

 

  1. Do you have any scars?



Oh.  Do I have a strong point, you might still be thinking.  It’s scars. 

 

  1. What do you want to be when you graduate?



Mm.  There was a time I’d have known the answer to that.

 

  1. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?



My overall condition.

 

  1. Are you reliable?



In most regards, yes.

 

  1. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be?



Why did you waste so much time worrying about who you are?

 

  1. Do you hold grudges?



I try not to.  It’s a terrible waste of energy.

 

  1. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create?



Man and albatross.

 

  1. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had?



The first time I met Mycroft Holmes was singular.

 

  1. Are you a good liar?



Yes.  No.

 

  1. How long could you go without talking?



I’ve gone for many days without talking to another person.  Without talking to myself?  Not long, perhaps several hours.  Bachelor’s habits.

 

  1. What has been you worst haircut/style?



1991, shaving the sides of my hair to achieve a mushroom which I got rid of shortly after -- it had attracted snails and toads to the garden.

 

  1. Have you ever baked your own cake?



I have, a number of them.

 

  1. Can you do any accents other than your own?



Not for long.  A little Irish, a little American.  And I can do a German accent on English quite well, actually.  I’ve done it sometimes in shops or with Sherlock for a laugh.

 

  1. What do you like on your toast?



Goat cheese and pickles.

 

  1. What is the last thing you drew a picture of?



My friend Mycroft’s eyes.

 

  1. What would be your dream car?



A Citroen DS or a Volkswagen Karmenn Ghia.  But I’ve never learned to drive.  Not yet, I should say.

 

  1. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain.



Oh, yes.  Unusual?  Explain...?

 

  1. Do you believe in aliens?



Not necessarily as they are portrayed in popular culture.

 

  1. Do you often read your horoscope?



No, though I tend to when I am in a waiting room setting -- one’s reading standards plummet while waiting to have a few tubes of blood drawn -- there’s something primal, there.

 

  1. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet?



Only one?  I suppose A, over N, because A is symmetrical/reversible.  A for Alpha.

 

  1. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons?



Dragons.  Probably.

 

  1. What do you think about babies?



They are beautiful, absorbing, noisy.  Reminders of our animal selves.  I regret I will not have a child and seeing them often reminds me that I will not, and so I tend not to look at them for long.

 

  1. Freebie! Ask anything interesting you can think of.



What keeps you from doing what you love?  Oh, was I supposed to answer that, myself?  Oh, dear.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------

 

_11\. Apr._

After a longish, informal meeting at the MOD on single-source contracting, M and I went to a restaurant -- as he admitted, solely for the wording of its menus (he had been with a delegation from SE Asia and had filed it away).  I saw after ten seconds it would be next to impossible to get through a single page of the entrées at once without exploding with laughter, but it was such a quiet, elegant place & I would have caused a disturbance.  It was more or less like:  “okra kissed by almond honey delights under purée and blanketing” (honestly) “a flavour-layered slip of pickled pear in a draping of pastry” (drape! oh hell, no, not after delights and blanketing) and so much more.  So we literally made it a sort of table game to choose and order the most preposterous things for each other -- but from memory, without cracking a smile.  Of course that was infinitely easier for him, though he’d a handicap in the form of a large glass of red wine and was visibly tired (or pretended to be for my sake, more likely).  I managed to recite it like a complete prig, in old-radio RP, glasses-on-nose, the works:  “Poultry bouquet starring seared duck on nests of shoots and rocket under the drizzles from pear mint sauce of our own robust taste chef.”  For my efforts I had the pleasure of seeing M grin discreetly to himself -- he smiles so rarely but has beautiful small, white teeth & if pleased enough, canines are added -- additional effect.  I got to see them again just as I’d decided I was starting to miss them, a bit, when his “poultry bouquet” arrived.  In the form of three...duck-roses!  I can't. Thin slices of foul bent (in spite of its being rather crumbly in texture) into petals & speared through with tiny metal picks that had leaf shaped handles.  On nests (indeed, burrow-like arrangements) of bean sprouts of various sorts with the spicy rocket lettuce jutting out the sides.  ‘Sauce of own robust taste chef’, included/drizzled.  Presented with flair on the part of the waiter.  M and I both hummed at it, exactly the same lilting way, like in a cabaret.  The waiter glared as if we’d conspired to mock him & M said something face-saving for us all in Javanese (there’s sth one doesn’t write often).  When we were alone again he declared our stereophonic response "an atavism in the face of indefinite foodstuffs", which set me off & there was no respite after that.  My dinner was nearly as startling, actually:  I’d got a sort of hammock-bed-like configuration of a crepe with asparagus. I must try to make something like it, soon.  The sculptural aspect looks fun and whoever puts those plates together has the best kitchen job in London.

It was additionally exciting to realise that in the morning, tomorrow, we shall see through the marriage of one of *our* dearest people, to his great love.  Yet M did not mention it at all, aside from the arrangements with the cars.  Perhaps it all struck him as too obvious.  There are rarely true omissions with him.  But in the end there were plenty of other things that kept “the obvious” at bay.  We had such a nice chat though I may have been staring.  It’s not as though I’d nothing to think highly of, in front of me.  He was so lovely.  Is.  So.  Lovely.

Perhaps I let my guard down too much, now that I think of it.  But the guard is weary. And we are friends, aren’t we?  I can be that, no matter what & it will be a privilege.

Well, now it is a matter of hours.  I really ought to be in bed but I am mooning over this book at the table with a cup of chamomile, in the most hideous pyjamas in London and environs.  Ha, he’s not asleep either.  Are we really texting -- mercy.  It’s almost 1:30 and he is at his desk?  And I am...scribbling about his...being...at his desk. 

Lexie, stop, you are to be a best man -- and it will not do to yawn. 


	37. Beneath the secret staircase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:41-42

_12\. Apr._

10:10     Rodney will ring for me shortly. I’ve not managed to force down any more lukewarm water so a few lines might help curb the nerves. At the last minute I’ve chosen a memento from Auntie Claudia’s box as well, a gilded stick pin which is at least a century old by now, with a swallow in flight, the sort ladies wore when a loved one was abroad or gone to war, surrounded by a circle of pearls for their tears, and tiny amber-coloured stones. It was a hat pin in better days and on this occasion it will hold Henry's tie fast. I needed them both with me, today. In moments like these, of unity, one looks about, looks within. I suppose we all will. Rather tense, honestly.  R’s here.

12:45     Re. occurrences today, I shall try to go in order. So much to embrace at once and in the same few words that fail me even on the best of days. I may forget some things. In fact, I find myself waiting for it all to dissolve, again.  

Dear volume. Dear, dear beautiful book, it has happened. I’d no hope whatsoever M would concede to what he has -- or that he might ever ask me for what he has. And yet. His card stands here on the table once more, in nearly the same place I’d had it on that awful night a month back, as a bit of evidence that he has indeed said it. Twice. No, three times. Essential. Less than an hour ago, I learned that (my ‘colleague’ -- the word has never fit) M cares for me. We seem to have come to a certain understanding. I still cannot entirely put it into words.

Fine. Where to start: I went to the GB and LC met me in the foyer to lead me to the annex (rather too keen and forward as he tends to be and I didn’t want them all to see but I believe they did). A registrar attended ‘remotely’ to carry out the ceremony, which I found so moving, though hopefully they didn’t get too distracted -- I suppose every wedding has to have at least one weepy audience member (no other volunteer presented himself). In all seriousness, I’d thought I would get through it far better but as J started to speak it hit me, that it wasn’t the first time they’d been through it. And imagining all the longing of those years, right then, was too much. How longing shapes people -- I’ve had far less to build on -- here, they’ve been best friends for years, through injury, danger, burial, resurrection, reconciliation. Their passion. The meaning in what we had, right in front of us. So much. So, they said their legal vows, the rest kept private. They didn’t exchange rings of course (already in place) nor did they kiss (that was an oversight, but we’d all had our share of emotions by then and it hardly matters that they weren’t asked for an 'on-demand'). Afterward, once the registrar had completed the formalities and chatted with J a bit, S & J left and went home to start their honeymooning -- in the back of M’s car, if J’s state when he returned for their wedding certificates (patient R.!) gave any indication -- lucky husband, in yet another regard.

The registrar left, quite moved, after M had a word re. upholding a month’s silence on the subject of the wedding.  We stayed back to wait for Rodney and chatted about the fittings of the annex, and the histories of several of the paintings on the walls.  M asked me if I’d like to see the secondary staircase (a hidden one -- I’d been standing at the door to it and had not noticed it) & it had been the secret behind our meeting, at the start. He’d gone upstairs to the library that way, which is why I did not see him. I expect I have come a step closer to understanding why he did it, at all.  That I can hardly believe it is a matter to be overcome in stages.  I am calmer now than when I arrived home but that is not saying much.  I might dress, for one thing.

M admires me, has admired me, though I don’t know if this declaration has been brought forward because of the circumstances leading to this marriage, which naturally remind one of one’s own prospects, or if it has more to do with what has happened between us most recently -- I’d say the latter, as I have felt many times that something (essential) lies just beyond my reach (he has remained out of range, and my feelings have become too enormous to hide; he seemed uninterested in anyone though tolerant of me, and his assistant, A). I’d no idea that he feels drawn to something more, in me. I’d have given him my companionship for as long as he wanted it.  Which is still so much, I can’t. Lord, help me.

The card, I was writing about the card. The sentiment in it, both times: I needn’t have given it back that way, that day, or perhaps I did need to. Yet how could I have imagined he meant that?  It was ambiguous enough to be missed, this time not.

It all began with his revealing those dark stairs, which he mentioned had been used as a metaphor by Grandfather HN in a monograph on transference, which I’d been unaware of.  The stairwell itself was pretty -- lit only by a few small stained glass inserts in the wall which were reflecting coloured elogated patches over the floor, the slim banister and his left shoulder, which had got all streaked in red and blue.  It was very nice.  I looked at the glass a bit & thought we were finished with our tour, but then he turned and snapped an interior spring-loaded bolt on the door, to lock it.  And it occurred to me (in fact the sound unnerved me) that we were in an unusual position.  And we might go back out before someone came along or came down from above.  He told me suddenly not to think of ‘them’ and that he didn’t intend to disturb me, or worry me -- this, as I was running through a number of scenarios, some more shameful than others, which might explain why he felt it necessary to close us in. None of which seemed consistent with a man who had never once shaken my hand or as much as brushed my fingers passing a pen, or stood closer than one would in a lift out of necessity like at the MOD in a group, for instance, and here, he was far less than that “cubit” from me, holding me with dark, sharp eyes at such proximity I could see every texture in them. “Think of me once, this afternoon,” he said. (I believe that was after asking for my evening -- that he’d have news to share. ‘Of course I will think of you only once’, I wanted to say, you are in my thoughts constantly, I find I even want to dream of you in the few hours I am not kept awake with thinking of -- this.  Lord, I was unnerved.)  He was so close.  I decided to give up pretenses.  And I told him I do think of him (& ventured that ‘in return’ -- by then it seemed imperative to clarify his stance -- literally, as I’d no intention of stepping back).  He seemed skeptical of what I’d said; perhaps out of politeness he felt he ought to defer my attention. The distance that remained, then, was not my uncertainty nor his reluctance. It was habit!!! The delicacies of habit.  And I desired nothing more than to smash them. (“He would never want you,” I remembered, and it occurred to me that I stand to ruin myself in M's eyes, right there. A nightmarish prospect but one in complete variance with everything I was seeing.)

I have to stop this.  No tears. Not now. Where was I.

I admitted that I think of him, and he seemed not to accept it as entirely true. I stepped forward, first, uncertain if it would be too much. I told him to stop me, if. He would have, indubitably, had he not wanted to end that impasse -- that ‘regard does not necessarily intersect with want’.  Just as tolerance does not, as I tried to express to him, recently.

I'd intended to kiss his cheek.  However, there was nothing hesitant in that touch of his. There was care, certainly. As with something pretty he’d not want to drop. I feel it even now. It was overwhelming to have that, a bizarre loop, or sense that I’d had something similar, but naturally I had not -- it was merely what I'd wanted -- I'd constructed so many pretty chimeras -- and was now shifting over to believing, registering, staying up, breathing. That I appear to be -- am -- in fact meaningful to him, too, at the centre of all that focus of his. It was beautiful. His kiss was among the smallest, most fond yet cautious ones I have ever got. Still, he knew exactly how to touch me to make me so weak I wanted him to lead me somewhere else, anywhere at all. Stunning, quite literally.

Another kiss after dinner, he said. (Therefore not accidental, no. Not a slip in your reason, I thought, no.) I asked what sort and he almost smiled.

In fact I felt again when he kissed me back shortly afterward that it was nothing frivolous. An understanding -- but I don’t want to write anything more right now. Than I have already.

Why should I hold back. No. I will not. No. Fear cannot enter into this, now, no.

The second time, his tongue was at my lips for a moment & I wanted much more of it but tried to hold off. Dying. After a few brushes of his lips against mine, a finger braced right at the base of the skull, where they fire a single shot -- and then how he stroked the back of my neck, just so. Perfection. It has been so long. OMG.

Next time, I believe he will start, later, tonight. “By then it may mean more,” he said.

From my side it will. Let it: he doesn’t seem the sort to shy away. In fact, the gravity in his words can be taken as physical law, from what I have had the chance to see before. Let it be so: he has been informed, that from my side, there shall be no games. At all.

He told me to ask what I wanted to. I shouldn’t have mentioned the ring but it has been on my tongue for weeks -- “We shall/will not speak of the dead, now.” Not now, granted, not now. Then, a related question. Why me. Why, I asked, trying not to sound ungrateful or demean what he’d just implied (essential, to him, as a man, as a friend). "What could someone like you need from...me." (“Allow me to admire you.” If he gives me the same privilege. My admiration and good will, and all my flaws. Some rather disturbing, most of all to me, in such a context.)

Consider. He has quite literally asked permission to admire me. In nothing short of an appeal (and if those kisses truly took place and I did not dream them, because they each felt like a succession of brief, light-foot dreams, soft moths in a dance around a lamp -- like in the garden near Stroud, the dark moths, their softness, that describes them quite well) and from what he said, he intends to carry on with more of the privileges and heed he has given me already. That I will not feel overlooked again, I should accept it all.

And he asked if I am certain I want (his world). Help me, Gracious Mother, help me, I wanted nothing more and nothing less. I was a bit manic then, from the kisses and all the catching-up inside, that he had said what he had, that I had answered. On no small amount of faith that I have chosen to accept feelings which are genuine.

I can’t see what I’m writing, help.

I think all of this sounds a bit stilted, but I refuse to cross out a word of it. Forward, Lexie. It is the only way, now.

You must become better at this, you must, he needs it. Why would he present himself that way unless he really meant it, and needs that of me? A man of such enormous talent, and consequence, wouldn’t waste his time on anything less, would he. And yet, who am I, when there are so many accomplished, talented and experienced people -- his world teems with them -- the political and cultural elite of our nation, honestly -- why me? (His brother’s art teacher, let’s be honest? How did this ever start?)

I can’t match him in any of his many gifts. Though I can certainly support him and care for him for as long as I have on earth. OMG, I can’t calm this down, I’ll make myself ill. He worries -- his head is swarming no matter what, it never stops. There was such melancholy about him, for a moment, and I felt that it was less to do with this change, and more to do with time & work -- but we will manage, it's been brilliant so far. I wanted to tell him as much, to reach out a bit into that darker moment of his, to which he said, "where have you been." I might have kissed him again but it was a very personal moment and it did not fit. Soon we were leaving for the cars. It was just after we had talked a little, and he reiterated that my courage and talents "will not be overlooked again." As he was opening the lock on the door, I said, "For what it's worth, neither will yours." He didn't answer or look at me again. It scared me, in fact. We walked out into the empty annex, where no sign of any event remained -- not another word passed, not even goodbye.

A text, just now. Regarding a gift for S -- of certain family papers he's withheld.

Dangers: lust, vanity, gluttony, sloth. I cannot allow myself these things.

Another thing: M is possessive and controlling to S and I’ve no idea if that means or will mean jealousy over me, too. I will not be kept in check by another man's jealousy. And I am tying myself to an atheist / an atheist is also tying himself to me, I suppose we could say.

I must work on this. Tolerance, patience, respect, service, counsel, example. I will need a lot of help. So much.

The expressions of reticence and impatience with S have to be countered somehow. I can’t let them carry on over my head. If S accepts the papers today in Cambridge it will be a step, I should hope for the better. M is ready but holds many grudges over S, and v/v.

(Psalm 40:1-3: I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.)

16:15     I was tailed to the church and I pretended I hadn’t seen him. He pretended I hadn’t seen and I pretended I hadn’t seen him pretending not to have been seen. In fact I have hardly ever felt safer outdoors, since the days before I realised I would be coming out every day for the rest of my life, anywhere I went. Never mind.

Remember what you are, remember your place. Never descend to cynicism, never take for granted, be humble, do not become complacent. Ever. It would hurt him so much, after all of this.

If I am mistaken. If it was an outpouring after a moving ceremony and nothing more. That my place is further, far further than I imagine it. That he does not want me, as in man. As in lover. OMG

23:40     He did/does mean it all. Dinner was charming. I spent the entire afternoon worrying, praying, considering, wondering, and yet once we were together again it all felt very much the same as usual. Resolved, that we are perfectly fine, it isn’t a radical transformation aside from -- well, 'transformation’ is inaccurate, in any case.

He is allowing himself more and has ‘invited me to do the same’. This is how he prefaced the news he had -- presumably the original reason I was to keep the evening free. “I invite you to allow yourself more.” At the moment I am referring to the artwork, travel and political matters (meetings). In fact he presented me with so many wonderful things. I can’t believe any of this is real but it certainly is. He told me he would have news, and. Beijing!!! A project I drew in tears, when I could hardly breathe without crying, and when everything hurt, even moving my arm to pick up another brush, everything, and here, they have accepted nearly all of it -- it will be enhanced in CAD and constructed next year. An entire room of England’s pavilion will be of my design. An announcement will be made in the press for the papers and journals with a list of participating designers and contractors, myself among them. I cannot believe it. My mill, my artwork printed on glass walls. Moreover, Her Grace has personally recommended my participation in an exhibit at the Tate called “Post-Capitalist Perspectives on Industrial England” which by M’s description is bound to make waves in three circles, which he explained in some detail -- I don’t doubt the truth in it. And it will be sent round to Paris, Stockholm, Rome, and Brussels during the next two years as part of a European cultural exchange among chambers of trade (under Patronage!!!). I cannot comprehend why -- M said I’d made an impression and wouldn’t say more. But it is very last-minute, things are simply not done that way -- are they? On a word of recommendation? Lord, I’m still inking things and I should have four of these on the wall, chosen in a matter of weeks, to show in December! OMG, I never imagined I would show anywhere again, in my life, and -- bang. Of all places in London to show & I can’t wrap my silly head around it. I’d never dreamed of such an honour, who would, in life or death. I can’t even see the page, now. Oh, hell, hell, hell. Why me, though. Why is this happening, now, what have I ever done? I am nobody, it will incite controversy that someone has been tacked on to the programme. Deep water, and -- I shall hold onto his wrist for dear life? Complete madness.

Better. I’m going to make myself sick at this rate.  

I think I stared so vacantly he had to move on to another subject to bring me back. So we are also going to Biarritz together for a delegation, in two days -- I’ve no idea what I will do there but I will accompany him. It will be a pleasure, even though I don’t care to fly. Well, by then I was overwhelmed. He reminded me that his life looks that way, all the time & remarked that I don’t seem to care for it. Honestly, if I could get one thing across -- and I did try to explain -- I’m beyond pleased. I don’t know where to start expressing how much so. I did try to, later on.

I told him that I’d seen one of his guards. “Yes. You may always verify. Touch your right wrist as though you were looking for a watch, he will touch his left. If he doesn’t, you will tap at your chest three times, immediately.” “Sorry?” “And we will change that signal frequently." "We will?" "If you imagine you are not a potential target you are sorely mistaken.” "Target to whom?" I asked, and started coughing. Once that had calmed down he said they (the guards) have been present in various capacities since October, when S met me in Vienna and made me a potential figure of interest to no fewer than three international crime syndicates by speaking to me at length & then holding me like a lover under the watch of his soon-to-be kidnappers -- meaning he had found himself in trouble, after all, and J was sparing me the truth, that day. 

I suppose I was staring. At which he picked up his wine glass and smiled rather wickedly. He sipped and continued: "Your fortune, while discreetly managed, is sizeable & that alone puts you at risk among local criminal classes, should anyone discover it. Your contact with my brother has been noted, even by his less volatile 'fans'. Concealing your identity has been problematic, though worthwhile. You have, and will find yourself among people who may, as I've implied before --" (A waiter approached the entrance to the room and M's face went flat again.) "--earlier in our acquaintance -- have an interest in influencing you, me through you, observing my areas of enquiry, activities, and so forth. An area of no minor concern." I sort of answered, "I'm beginning to see." "Consider, Alexander, who you are." That is him. I was literally reeling in my chair. That was actually just *before* he told me about Biarritz. “Ah, and...” a bit of casual international air travel. To France. And some psycholinguistic training for diplomats, in the morning, to prepare for a series of meetings -- in policy. Me -- in a quasi-diplomatic role.

When I gave a toast tonight, I wanted to raise a glass to love. To us. But it is far too soon. I committed a poor paraphrase of the traditional verse: "Here is to love, a thing so divine, description makes it but the less, 'tis what we feel but cannot define, 'tis what we know but cannot express." I believe I said "to that thing divine". Well. Dear beautiful hand-sewn, tolerant and selfless volume: his lips -- I can’t even finish.

It is not possible to address a page in such a manner. Therefore I shall imagine another audience:

Please, sir, you know what it is to enjoy a man: you are enjoying one of your own. And now imagine that one wants to be kissed with the same care as one would show to a beautiful girl, without being regarded girlish for it. I don’t know what I am trying to say tonight, I’m really fine. I simply can’t get past the feeling that he’d have wanted a woman instead and I am not that at all -- I’d not sensed any interest in any person, man or woman, from his side. Particularly toward any man. He kisses me as gently as a man would a woman -- that is how I prefer it, to roughness, which I cannot do anymore. That was only for -- no. No. A different life. I simply can’t have it that way any longer. No comparisons, ever. You see, sir, things move forward, we age, we are given reasons to change, small invitations from circumstance -- what am I trying to say. I am in complete shock and it keeps hitting me again and again, how sudden this feels, from his side. (If I cannot please him? OMG. Such a long road ahead, when so much has seemingly improved, I don’t understand what has changed so much that my own blood feels unfamiliar in my veins. Arousal is now noisy clicking, so externalised, it’s distracting.)

This is merely newness, Lexie. Forward.

He was so careful. Lord, why can’t I stop this.

He is a wonderful kisser, in a moment his mouth was so perfectly open to mine. The only sound was that of our breathing, which was a bit wild near the end, before he reminded me where we were -- and I saw that there was indeed a driver, a car, and a road, that had all cruelly conspired to bring me home far too soon. I did not want to leave him, that way, and I was about to say so but it would have been inappropriate. He caught my lip one last time -- an answer. (And he gave me four of seven cakes he got from France. Not superstitious, no. We know that. He doesn’t even believe in luck -- and I believe he taught S to say the same: “there is no luck, there is no guessing,” when S is only the luckiest man ever, to be well-born, bright, accomplished and so well-loved.) I could barely get into my building -- how I did is proof of luck, right there, ha! Plays on words aside, I don’t know how others even stand when they’re so turned on. Literally. I just wanted to get on the floor of the lift and Lord knows what. That cedar & orange, on my lips, rubbed into the skin around my mouth and nose to where there was no other scent in my world --

I should not have written any of that down unless to be re-purposed as proof I ought to have gone to sleep, and spared the page and the pen an hour ago. Tomorrow (today, later!) I won’t see him. Today, I should say. It’s very much morning, now, nearly two. Training session from 10:00-1:00, I must rest.

Catalytic, essential.

Are there more beautiful things to mean to someone?


	38. Review and revision

_13\. Apr._

I’ve left so many details of the wedding unmentioned.  I might have noted down some things about the grooms themselves.  I can’t say I am any more focused this morning.  A haze alternating between grinning dumbly at my tabletop and...grinning dumbly out the window is more accurate.  For the first time in many, many months I even considered making coffee, but that never ends well.  Therefore I’m counting on Randall’s charisma to keep me alert.  In all honesty, I’d very much like to see M and give him a kiss.  I’m afraid I’d yawn in his arms, however.  I could still smell a bit of his cologne water on the cuff of my jacket.  I was looking for it.  I wanted a clue that I’d not imagined it.  My dreams were of C, mainly his shadow and voice, but the effect is the same.  An ache.  A kiss would do, indeed.  Perhaps tomorrow.  Patience, Lexie.  Suddenly we demand things? 

Regarding the wedding, then.  A few words while I wait.  S was in grey (I would like to shake the hand of that Brazilian German fellow -- we must meet), with a white shirt open at the neck (as usual).  I’ve no doubt that was for J’s benefit.  Both brothers, I must say, inherited beautiful, long necks and shapely ears.  S had combed his hair back off his forehead a bit and looked dangerous and Continental.  He seemed very pleased when I arrived, beautiful book.  Well-shagged, you see.  If there’s one thing S cannot hide well, it is his satisfaction over sex.  He wears it for hours.  J was standing at parade rest, waiting, his chin up, also gleaming around the eyes, in dark blue with the blue shoes from Lithuania -- indeed, they were the identical colour of the suit, very original as a combination.  A gray and black tie.  He’d also combed his hair nicely to the side (when I saw him last he looked far less orderly, of course).  He was sparking with adrenaline.  My M was very handsome, OMG, but deathly serious by compare.  At the white mantelpiece in the room, looking on but clearly absent.  We chatted a bit and S and J talked & waited for the registrar, who came in punctually with LC several minutes later. 

The official vows were very short.  It couldn’t have been more than five minutes or so and we were already being asked to sign the register.  M had the pen he’d got from Her Majesty in place of a (waived) honour and I could hardly get mine out of my pocket.  I wasn’t doing terribly well by then.  The registrar sort of looked away and when I was staring for too long M discreetly pointed at the blank where I might scribble my name.  We both have rather large, distinct signatures -- I would say M’s is influenced by his training in calligraphy but of course on such a document one minds the hand more than usual.  If one can see one’s hand.  J & S signed and we exchanged our congratulations.  I don’t really remember what I said but I do know that M was quoting a fragment about courage to J -- Churchill. And this after talking about Tehran the night before.  I had a word with J and suddenly we noticed our ‘phoenix’ had flown off with M somewhere, leaving us with the registrar.  (A fan, apparently, keen to talk.)  “What was the crux of the crutch?” he asked.  There was more to that than I could hope to understand and my nose was bothering me so I went to tell the other two that the presentation of the certificates would take place in a moment.  They were in the gents’ and S was in the middle of chiding M over fags, which neither of them needed to be smoking.  Well. 

The rest.  The rest, the rest.

It was so dear of him to say over dinner that I would have to multiply my best efforts to be an embarrassment to him in Biarritz when I’ve no idea what I will do as an observer at such an event and I am quite shocked to have been invited in that capacity.  So in a matter of a half-hour, a trainer named Randall will arrive to...?  Am I trainable, I ask?

13:30     OMG.  That.  Not trainable, no.  That was absolutely intense and eye-opening.  But for now, I need another meal and my head is splitting.  Imagine that my stomach hurts from laughing, oh mercy.  Randall was brilliant.  I need food.

14:50     So.  What even happened.  Term-stating, rehearsing refusals.  Escalation -- using increasingly forceful rhetoric to avoid giving in quickly rather than presenting best argument, and backing down / apologising-in-compromise / in conciliation / to build trust.  ‘Time-begging’ -- stating, blocking and using time to compose replies and force the other to reconsider value of time-pressuring.  "I want, I need, I feel, I am convinced."  Won’t / not can’t; choose / not must, i.e. use fewer modals, less “we might consider not” and more in the direction of “we won’t.”  Reiteration, extension of escalation, speak without emphasis / qualifiers for deniability.

Most important points.

Before I say anything more, though -- getting ahead, again.  At almost exactly ten, the intercom buzzed and I answered.  It was Jens.  I let him in and he’d been cycling, in cycling gear and pink from the morning air.  It was a bit surreal to have him here, so much after the fact.  Establishing how I felt about ‘the fact’ at the spur of the moment was distracting so I asked him how things are at work and tried to decide how to tell him I was -- expecting a bloke.  For training.  I started to smile and he thought I was grinning at his reaction to the decor in my flat, which would look avant-garde to someone from his circle, certainly.  It might even appear I’d had it arranged, recently.  Auntie Claudia had an eye and the furniture is low, blocky and smooth -- well.  Not important.  The sofa is brilliant.  Anyhow, he’d never been, and I think that was the key to understanding our first, awkward moment once I'd shut the door.  I was feeling so horrid when I last wished he’d come by.  Does that sound bad?  Jens unclipped a small sling-type bag from his shoulder and pulled out a catalog from...Sotheby’s.  I’d not seen it.  He was interested in the story behind the illustrations of the Family in that hand-bound book (the auction is in 8 days) but of course trying to contextualise that while buzzing in Randall was a bit much.  I confirmed that they were my drawings and he had time to compliment and congratulate me -- and ask if I’d be interested in field work in Hanover. If I’m well enough.  He showed me the job description and I had about ten seconds to explain that I am doing something different before I heard the door to the lift in the hallway.

Randall.  Oh, Lord.  I let him in and he was carrying a rather large briefcase, nearly a small suitcase.  Jens gaped at him, and then at us -- perhaps he was also drawing a comparison to his Horatio, who has raven-dark hair, but this man has infinitely more class and presence -- smooth, mannered, in an exquisite suit and tie, gold glasses, perfect complexion, eyes worth consuming for hours -- the color of dark tea, perfect teeth.  Gorgeously polished, Indian roots, such poise, perfectly modulated voice.  So bright.  Imagine me.  I defaulted to dinnertime auntie and apologised to Jens that I’d had an appointment.  I told Randall to put any props he might have brought along aside, realising as I said it that Jens had assumed Randall -- well, he had been hired, hadn’t he.  It doesn’t matter!  It's all ridiculous, anyhow.  Randall, I would discover, reads body language chillingly well and had already worked out the probable relationship between Jens & myself.  He seemed to want to help me make an interesting exit for Jens and instantly fell in stride with me:  “I’m (supposed to) work you over three hours, you’re dawdling.  Is he joining us?” Sth like that.  Jens shook his head and apologised -- and left very quickly.  When I’d closed the door Randall re-approached me and put out a hand.  “Good morning.  Randall Barmet.  Anyone else coming by for a spot of disappointment?”  I started to laugh.  “No, no.  No.  Alexander Nussbaum.”  

Fine.  The reality of the changes sort of struck me all at once.  It was hard to breathe, for a moment.

Randall ran through a number of scenarios with me and while I appreciate his advice, it was also a bit disconcerting to hear from him that through my mannerisms, my own nature, I attract certain sorts of people to myself.  He broke that down to such a degree I wanted him to stop it several times.  That so few people observe the sort of manners I do, that I might be perceived as facetious, or...‘hothouse aristocracy’.  “Not a come-on, but look at yourself.”  “Not a come-on, certainly,” I answered.  He laughed.  “You stand out, Alex.  We have to work that to your advantage.”  “You can tell me which features you see as disadvantages.”  “Oh, yeah.  I’m getting to that.  Pluses?  Values, a strong core of self-identity, a desire to reconcile people, observant.  Excellent.  Minuses?  Also substantial, listen:  insecure, inflexible, impractical, and...falsely modest.  Well, well.  Shall I add instant personalisation of criticism to the insecurity/self-identity dichotomy that pulls you to bits?”  “You forgot something.”  “The elephant in the room?  I’m not a zookeeper.  You didn’t like ‘falsely modest’.”  “No.  I did not.”   “What would it mean if you could hide things better?”  “We all hide things.  To avoid drawing people to us, for instance, or offending them,” I replied.  Randall laughed.  “Good excuse.  Why is it important to you that you should hide self-approval, which is closely tied to both those things -- drawing people to yourself and concerns over offending them.  That is you, is it not.  Come now, Mr. Holmes told me you’re quite the portraitist -- and you don’t even need pencils.  You’ve never done an honest self-portrait?  Oh, you have.  I see I’ve annoyed you.  I’m to make a envoy of you?  You cannot allow false modesty to trip you.  Break it to pieces with me.  All of it.”

The rest was more fun, fortunately.  He was well-intentioned but he had hit a soft spot, hadn’t he.  The contradictions.  First-world complexes, mostly.  It’s no secret I have leftward political leanings -- often in uneasy partnership with the Teachings.  The original sources of my own fortune bring me no small amount of personal shame even if I’ve never told anyone so.  And I know what I am but pride is another, more complicated area where I have a few issues, granted.  I was not expecting to talk about that for nearly an hour, yet after doing so, I can see why he brought it up -- a person cannot present himself as a “nobody-yet-authority” in the sort of circles M runs in, for instance. 

And those very circles appear to be coming my way.  The ripple effect, in the form of large waves.  The postcard of “Nec mergitur” S gave me from Vilnius was prophetic, I see.  M has included me on this trip for reasons of his own, and not to warm his pillow for him (he would not have emphasised the separate rooms and avoidance of ‘indistinct status’ if I were to be ‘only’ that).  This seems to be a function of timing.  I believe he’d have invited me along even if we had not come to this understanding of ours in the meantime.  He wants to extract a cultural envoy from me, from what I gathered today?  And I think I’ll let him.  OMG.  This must be what he meant by “accepting it all”.

Texting with M a bit.  Olive, graphite, dk. blue.  No need to exchange any Sterling for Euros (+ I think I still have a hundred or so in a sock.  Yes, a sock.)  Too soon for endearments but I am thinking of them all the time.  My dear, dear M.


	39. On making do in Biarritz

_14\. Apr._

“Good morning, Mycroft.”  “Good morning, Alexander.”  A bit of an ice-bucket.  There had been so much to say.  At least that’s how I felt right then.  All the things I’ve learned, the ideas I’ve had, all the endearments I’ve wanted to say and the things I've wanted to ask about -- I just froze there with him.  (It’s all so new. Proportions are still unnatural, I suppose.)  He raised his eyebrows a bit and went back to looking at papers in his hands, which he’d just pulled out of one of several large, sealed envelopes.  I started to think that maybe he was regretting what he’d said, which would be pathetic -- at least I know enough of him to declare that impossible.  I see I’m waffling a bit.  Well, I was unnerved, then, too.  Finally I sort of started, “Is this a good time to ask some things?”  “Fire at will.”  “Do the others know we are acquainted...Mr. Holmes?”  I had in mind his remark from dinner at La Gavroche, about not being someone of ‘indistinct status’ -- and the face he’d made.  “Presumably you have been contracted, therefore we are acquainted.”  “I should observe, listen for tendencies and so on.  You’ll tell me the areas of focus at the various functions.”  “Yes.  Your cards, a copy of your dossier and our schedules, nobody will ask, but do acquaint yourself with it.  You will have no expenses.”  He stuffed the papers back into his envelope and handed over two brown A4s.  I opened one but I couldn’t tell what it was at a glance so I put it down.  “Thank you.  You’ll set the tone for us?”  “Yes.”  “Anything else I should -- oh.  Hello.”  (He was looking at me caringly again, so lovely.)  “Bear in mind?  That the appearances which be...” (He put out his hand and brushed my cheek, just then.)  I needed to smile, so I forced myself to think of the evening before last.  But the bravery I’d hoped to project did not come through because his face dropped a bit and he seemed to make a quick decision.  I met him halfway.  We were nearly at the airport.  His lips grazed my cheek and I managed to brush my fingers over his temple a bit.  The soft hairs, there, above his ear.  But there was no time for a kiss.  We had to get out, already.  I was introduced to the others in the party.  LINT.  Lonnie, Imogene, Nigel, Terry.  Lonnie the head, Imogene the shoulders which the stomach, Nigel, and leg-man Terry were very much beneath -- the ladies were sharp, indeed.  (Memory devices via analogy.  Not a strong point with me, though they are amusing to think up.)  The flight was fine, a bit noisy given the type of small commuter jet, with the high rear engines.  We both spent it reading in silence, though in different rows. 

When we landed we were bussed to arrivals & we had just enough time to send our bags on, step into a shuttle and join a working brunch break at the Hotel du Palais -- red with cream trimming, palatial appearance, indeed, situated right on the ocean.  There was a light rain falling when we arrived. 

There were people standing about and colourful tapas sandwiches all over a revolving centrepiece on a large table.  The guests were taking liberal portions and mixing.  M didn’t touch the food (“the sheer number of fingers”) therefore I did not, either.  In fact there were not many I could have eaten, as my stomach was in knots and most of those things were with roasted meats that looked rather rich.  Later on we had a few with mild melted goat cheese, aubergines, zucchini, and fish, among other sorts of sea food, not far from the hotel.  And the group shared pans of Paella, of course -- large, heavy rounded iron skillets for four.  I believe I managed to project the right level of shallow rapport with them, and toward M, all day.  One funny detail -- that M and I were the only ones who ate those messy tapas with forks and knives and not like pub pizzas.  Even so, they were dripping with sauce.  Our colleagues got soused on beer, the ladies worst of all, which I’d not expected of them.  And I wanted to kiss M all the time.  In truth, I felt quite empty and the rest was anxiety, of course, and ridiculous, but it was there.

I’m exhausted.  I have taken so many notes today and trying to comment on the things I’ve seen is nearly impossible.  Suffice it to say that my head feels close to exploding.

 

_15\. Apr._

Actually, by late last evening I was feeling quite put out, despite the fascinating day, and I was trying to reason with myself to stop it, that a few hours of meetings & formality/superficiality did not negate a single thing between us, of course.  It’s all acting, after all, posing, as so many times, elsewhere.  But I needed to chat.  To touch him, at least for a few moments.  I was starting to feel rather dismal about it.  M knocked on my door a half-hour after we’d returned from supper with the group.  He had a stack of files in his hand, again.  “Mr. Nussbaum,” he said, and held them up a bit.  “Ah, yes,” I muttered, and he came in.  As soon as we had the door shut I stood and looked at him (dying, honestly, & he was so perfectly calm, the same way he’d commanded such presence all day, despite the fact that he was meeting people personally rather than actively participating in the meetings).  “Will you draft a recommendation tonight after the criticism presented by the representatives from Serbia?  Regarding the roads project?”  I asked, in as flat a tone as I could -- for practise, if nothing else.  I was supposed to take cues from him, was I not?  He watched me watch him, and said, “yes.”  It reminded me of the tension I have sometimes felt in his office, over tea, though I’d convinced myself it was my imagination.  Here, it was intensified.  And accordingly my entire body was thrumming for him, so noisily in my chest, as well (how I hate that).  He shook his head, smiled, and walked up to me -- and suddenly his mouth was all over my cheek and chin.  I don’t know how he could have shut that all off so well, (before or after).  I think I said “more” and that’s about all I could do before I took his tongue into my mouth.  I’d given up on feeling any of that & when I got it I had to hold onto his arms to stay up, at all.  Lord, how we licked into each other, so much.  The way he sighed, gorgeous sounds.  Literally a few seconds of that and I was done for.  I wanted to sit down and try to undress, I was choking in that tie.  But then he broke away, petted my cheek, told me goodnight, grabbed the files and left, slamming the door behind himself, perhaps for someone else’s benefit.  Certainly not mine.  After another ten minutes of male-specific agony I went out & knocked on his door, with intent.  Gone, out.  I’ve no idea when he came back, because I resorted to myself and fell asleep shortly afterward.  Ocean air?  The smells?  I don’t know.  Everything here -- I’d swear they were dosing the prawns.  Did I just write that?  See?  Even worse, I’d do it again.  I don’t know what’s come over me. I'm supposed to be having a 'siesta' time....

OMG a terrible thing happened this evening.  Imagine that during the dinner one of the representatives from Herzegovina, just diagonally from me, became belligerent -- I thought he was tipsy -- and complained of neck discomfort, wincing and muttering and huffing to a companion while rubbing at his collar and nape -- we were all tired, of course.  But he set his elbows against the tabletop and winced again, as though they were badly bruised and he got up & left the table.  I remembered something from one of my stays and I jumped up to look for him, and ran into M, who was just outside in the foyer talking to a retired Latvian officer who is about to take a new post in NATO.  “Mr. Nussbaum,” he said, rather warningly, because I was probably looking a bit mad.  “Pardon me, General Podnieks.  Mr. Holmes,” I said, “I must have a word with the gentleman in brown who passed through here a moment ago.  Where has he gone.”  “That will wait, Mr Nussbaum and you will kindly excuse us.”  “It will NOT,” I said, trying to channel some of Randall,  “He is in the middle of circulatory failure, he’s walked off without his translator, now which way has he gone!”  Mycroft went completely white and the General took off running to the stairs well ahead of me and M despite his age.  The jingling of Euro coins in his pockets.  An observant receptionist followed close behind with a phone in her hand.  A terrible moment:  the man was on the floor in the stairwell, he’d been looking for a place to smoke perhaps because he had a packet of cigarettes in his hand, and he’d quit breathing.  He was removed very quickly out a fire exit.  In fact, he is in hospital in critical condition and it is not clear whether he will live or not, OMG.  I feel so sorry for him.  He probably didn’t feel any chest or back pain that would warn him, either.  A rare case, but I’ve lain in a ward where a man had experienced that elbow pain and got a pacemaker put in, &c.  Later I couldn’t stop crying (because -- heart/stairwell and it got under my skin so much) & I went to my room & M made an excuse for me with the others, who knew nothing about the incident.  It’s been kept very hushed up, apparently, for certain security reasons I don’t even want to understand.  Leaving 5:45.

21:15     M was just here.  He’d ordered in something for me and stayed to watch me eat it.  And checked that I’d taken all my pills.  So thoughtful of him, though I’d no appetite right then.  When I was finished he informed me that the man (Gordon Mirk) had passed away and reminded me about the shuttle/flight arrangements in the morning.  I started howling again and he petted my neck like a good father (that’s how I fancied it felt, anyhow).  And kissed me goodnight, a few small pecks along my cheek though I think we’d both hoped for much more.  He seemed a bit unnerved, rightfully so, I suppose.  And he had one more late meeting that he couldn’t talk about.  (Shower and bed for me.  Enough.) 

When I’m home I’ll try to say some more about the people and sights because there were many beautiful things, too.  


	40. Pale Rider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:43

17\. Apr.

It’s nice to be home, in spite of (or because of -- ?) the adventures that were to be had in Biarritz.  I will go to Baker Street to see S later on this morning.  I think I might have managed to learn crepe-making, so we’ll fry some for J.  I was thinking about replicating the ones I had recently with M though I consider the hammock configuration optional.  As time allows, let’s say. 

A few more words about M's and my time there in France are in order but I have a feeling it will come out better a different time, in relation to another trip, perhaps.  I find I don’t know what to make of that sort of event.

Yesterday we touched down in London around twelve thirty in the afternoon and after taking leave of the others we went to M’s Whitehall office to speak to one lady and leave some documents with her.  He went & spoke to someone on another floor and when we finally had a moment alone I presented him with my notebook.  I actually made fourteen pages of compactly-written notes for him in those two days.  “Ah,” he remarked.  “Illuminating.”  I thought he was laughing at me but he put an arm around my shoulder and snickered, “You managed to draw the participants’ noses and sets of teeth in the margins, too.”  “Yeah,” I said.  “Thank you, Alexander.  Go home, there won’t be anything of interest to you here.”  “Are you sure.”  He glanced at me and raised an eyebrow.  “Mycroft,” I said, and I was really struggling to be calm by then, “It’s been too long.”  “Ah -- not here.”  “Understandable.  Even so.”  “I know.  Yes.”  And he let go of me. I’d like to know what is holding him away from me so much, or why he feels he needs to hold himself off, if I am not the issue, here (?)

Behavioural modification, S called Randall’s visit when I tried to describe how Jens had come by at the same time and so on.  I suppose he wouldn’t have wanted to hear about Jens that way but (that still f’s me off, just the gall of that designer, that shimmying of the arse around the office -- hell).  We had a look at the Sotheby’s site and the book has been beautifully presented in a sort of interactive photograph that shows its binding from all sides, etcetera, very tempting as a little gem for a personal library.  Starting at 9 thousand.  I hope it does well.  Anyhow. 

It is awkward.  There is no other way to express it.  To be honest, it would be nice to chat a bit about M as a person and I’ve no need or intention of telling S (one usually thinks their siblings are nasty) how I feel about his brother now (he seemed aware that something has changed but got it by deduction -- I didn’t say anything directly about it).  My approval -- a positive remark -- was enough to start off a commentary I truly wish he’d spared us both. 

So I told him *why* I thought training with Randall could be a good/useful thing and asked him what his initial impressions/deductions of me had been at first.  Sort of scary, actually.  He’d thought I was an architect, perhaps because of the rapidograf in my pocket?  Also, that I was gay, religious, of a privileged background (not exactly what I wanted to hear as “first impressions”) and newly single, raised by older people, animal lover (not untrue) and corrected overbite, Germanic language.  OMG.  Quite good, he is.  I admitted that I’d thought he was clever but ill.  I actually thought he looked like a person with an undiagnosed nervous eating disorder but I would never tell him that.  Particularly after having just made a stack of crepes to stuff with asparagus.

S actually seemed to think I’d want to take a job from Jens, now.  So that 'disbelief' of his that I would refuse turned into his revealing that in a period of nine years (nothing easier in the world for me to imagine as a block of time -- to me it is “that stretch of time since Carly”) three people have “lost their reason” to “the Pale Rider” which is how he describes his own brother.  If I’d not been trying to control my tongue I’d have told him a bit about older brothers and Pale Riders.  If he’d had a look at my brother’s back, he’d have seen that under his posh shirts and white coat he wore a foot-tall tattoo of the most gruesome, shrieking reaper on a skeletal horse, scythe drawn right over his shoulder blade.  I helped design it, myself.  It was meant to compliment the one over his heart.  Frightful.  And I am to apply *that* sort of image to my M, who is so calm, gentle and generous with me at every turn.  S claimed two in nine years had died, of those three.  From which I infer the third of them was S?  Or was he telling me I am the third? 

I didn’t care much for that remark but I know jealousy when I see it and I reminded S that I care for him very much and that *this* doesn’t change the fact he is dear to me & M and I don’t talk about him, it’s a non-issue -- (or does he *want* us to talk about him?  He was impossibly pouty over it, I can’t even tell).   S should have laughed but he seems determined to talk me out of something, which is precisely what I’d hoped he'd not do.  He told me to watch out and to ask M what he’d do with a scythe.  I couldn’t let that pass so I rang up M and asked him on the spot.  Turns out he was an Oxford champion in Épée fencing.  (Lord, that’s hot.  He must teach me some of that someday, must.)  As I put it:  should the grim reaper appear to me in estate tweed with a sword, he will be welcomed.  Oh, yes.  He could pin me to the wall -- I would just let him, really.  (I didn’t say the last bit.)    When he saw my reaction he glared at me and said I’m conventional, for the sword-fighting, &c.  This from a someone who likes army boys in uniform, I reminded him, to which he blushed and rolled his eyes.  J’s ascent on the stairs just after that was classic, almost slap-stick.  J had picked up some shopping (the golden tip of a bottle of GunOil H2O poking out of the bag -- a good choice, if I do say so myself.  And I do.)  So, I went to the toilet to have a laugh (really) while they kissed in the living room -- then I heard them whispering rather energetically, at least J -- who probably saw my new ID cards on the table.  I think even S was surprised by them, so to an officer it could be insulting -- to see someone like me handed vetted access (+ he thinks M and I have been “shagging”, as he put it just before the wedding -- yes, Captain, I’ve sharp ears, a bit of a curse).  I elected to go as the man sounded hungry.  When he saw me out the Russian stone cutter S hired to do the lapis in J’s ring was on the doorstep, in tears, there’d been a suspicious death in his family, so they went off on a case, most probably.  I hope S made the asparagus for J.

I will see M at 7 (supper only, he apologised) and I wanted to do some drawing.  For now I’m...not. 

Pale Rider.  That’s so awful of S to say that.  S and I have both confronted the End, more than once, and from what I have pieced together he has done his part in placing himself in its way.  He is fortunate to have his officer to keep those ideas at bay. 

22:50     Of all places, M is going to St. Petersburg.  I cannot believe they are inviting anyone for international talks right now when the new embargoes are firmly in place, a visa war is on which is annoying to business travellers, and in the last half a year there have been several threats and attacks in the centre.  But he is going.  Meaning (I think) that someone of utility will be at the talks, the majority of which he will pay no heed to (S claims M never travels anywhere but home-to-office, which is clearly an exaggeration -- we have a summit in Edinburgh coming up, as well).  I asked him if I might accompany him and he said he doesn’t want me to travel outside Great Britain for the time being.  Not that I find that reassuring, at all.  He said he would see me home and kissed me goodnight, again in the car, for most of the ride.  So perfect.  Finally, I said, “are you going home, dear?”  “No.  Why?”  “Come upstairs.”  “Another night.”  “I think about --” I wanted to suggest a little something but he cut me off with more kisses.  Again, he was quiet except for a beautiful purr at the end.  Kitty.  “May I ask you something of a personal nature, Mycroft.”  “Yes, Alexander.”  “Have you been intimate with a man before, I was wondering.”  The pause.  Awful silence between us, against the pounding sound of the tyres, clack-clack-clack over a bridge, just then, its metal fittings, which made me jump.  He didn't say anything. “So not to such an extent but wanted to, or?” I suggested.  M put a hand at the back of my neck and said, “Portraitist.  Should anyone doubt it, exile.”  “What!”  “Apologies.  No.  Eccentric climes.”  “You should come upstairs.”  The car pulled into Great Peter Street.  “No, I cannot.  Alexander, goodnight.”  “I care for you,” I blurted out.  “Yes, I understand,” he replied, “despite -- goodnight.  Despite goodnight, indeed.”  He looked so flustered, possibly embarrassed, but the light was poor, and I felt the warmth of his cheek under my lips more than saw it.  “Tomorrow, at ten.  MOD, be prepared,” he said.

Dear, dear kitty.  My ginger kitty.  Maybe he has memories, too, that are pulling at him.  Two/nine years. Terrible -- and explains all his precautions, perhaps.  Should bear that in mind and go very slow, perhaps take the lead, more?  Argh.  The subject is out in the open, though, and that is better than nothing.  I expect he will address it when he has time to think it through better.  I will do the same.  I'm a bit taken aback and it's still too much to do justice to, here.

23:50    I should be in bed but sth just occurred to me, that S is usually careful about what he says around our phones and in the living room, etc. at B St.  He wanted M to hear him talk about the deaths/‘Pale Rider’?  Or didn’t care if he heard?  That he was telling me something so tragic?  Why would he do that? 


	41. Goodbye, and a pact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:44

_19\. Apr._

I have already written elsewhere, or intended to, that a man must know how and when to say goodbye. This is not something I excel at.  Without detailing things:  relationships have ended on terms (death, cheating, change of heart, unchanged plans) which I hadn't expected.  

I’d meant to start this entry differently but was thinking about M's upcoming departure as well as reasons behind all the dreams I had of Carly, last night.  Gorgeous fucking and I woke up randy + miserable.  The lizard brain is ready to demand, and my heart is freaking out.  It’s not Warfarin, it’s me.  That I click, gurgle, cry and start at every other loud noise, and can’t control my own urges.  Or is this the process of shedding habits?  On that note, supper.

19:55     M showed no small anxiety, at his place today. It emerged re. not hearing someone say "goodbye" properly.  I admit I was surprised by it but less than I might have been had S not informed me of the fates of M’s previous “associates” (this entry is already a mess -- I’ve even managed a lovely smudge over ‘fates’). We are on the margin of something much deeper. Book, you see my difficulty. I’ve a feeling that M has chosen people before who needed help.  While I am not keen on being part of such a pattern, his paternal traits suggest a need to -- what the hell am I writing this for. A normal need to provide something, protect, and share. 

21:16     I have thought over the things S said about “pale rider” and I’ve elected to file it away with “he would never want you” & “least companionable”.  I think S may have stopped observing in favour of allowing his resentments to affect his judgement, of us both.  They rarely talk now, unfortunately.  J has been affected, in the past, several times, but it’s in his best interest (and mine) to calm things down.

21:45     OMG.  I called Sophie & she’s staying in Edinb.  Selling Swan’s Son and hiring out her flat.

22:35     I must get this down on paper or I will not sleep well. The anxiety I was referring to above came up this afternoon. M took me to his house for a three-hour ‘siesta’, making it clear that we would chat over tea and he would then return to the office.  (He is leaving for Russia in two days and will be there 21st-27th -- most of what he’s doing now is background / ‘table-setting’ as they call it.) 

So we went.  His place is tall, of whitewashed brick -- white trimmed, low-key Victorian elements with ironwork in shiny black.  The interior is also conservatively furnished but rather austere.  There is a certain overlap between his club and the living area of his own house -- it is dreadfully empty, though.  While well-kept, it is impersonal compared to Baker Street -- which is dusty and cluttered with odd trinkets and bric-a-brac; has dusty air with the faint smells of chemicals, carrots, fireplace smoke and possibly lavender; uncountable tea stains on things and coffee rings on the tabletops; books stuffed at all angles into the shelves; pictures leaning against surfaces instead of being hung; unusual theatre glasses & games, cards, pens; horrifying and precarious stacks of papers that look yellower at the bases; test-tubes & petri-dishes with little mysteries in each one; soft but fatally mismatched furnishings that have seen many a decade and were worn in by real people.  I love it, there.  Even though I’d swear that awful skull (Billy) is grinning knowingly at us all.  But I'd spoken first of contrast:  M’s place could house elegant parties or film crews.  He has a dining table in the room to the left of the entryway, which extends into a living area, with space for ten, crystal and porcelain in cabinets.  There are paintings clustered over one wall (which I didn’t manage to look at because he led me away from them).  The furniture is dark, elegant and taut -- leather and hardwoods.

We seated ourselves in front of a small fire, and it was the only thing there that I wanted to rest my eyes on, aside from my dear host, of course, who had been watching my reactions to his place very closely.  Our knees were bumped up against a marble-topped table, covered in a square of linen and a very heavy silver service.  (Tea cups with tiny gilded rims.)  The settee: crafted exactingly to delight the eye just before wrecking a bloke's spine. It gave me a powerful argument for trying out the floor & I think he caught me at a little fantasy about his carpet, which is lush and thick.  

He brought me a memo about what is apparently “our” book, and it is doing well in early bidding -- he admitted that he had done most of the calligraphy during a few sleepless nights & that the Franciscan master hired to write it out had fallen ill at the last minute due to what M dryly described as gluttony for old cream puffs.  OMG.  Perhaps we will have a chance to make another?  

So I was babbling that he might have told me he was having difficulty sleeping, that I might've bored him, &c.  I told him, not a moment too soon, to silence me.  He said that my silence would alarm him.  To tease him a bit I called him my ginger kitty.  He is my kitty, and imagine that he didn’t move a muscle, precisely as it was the night I slipped up and called him “dear” (I still can’t believe I did that).  Well.  I kissed one of his ears, in hopes of alarming him enough that he would kiss me back, and he did shake his head and reply, “Was there mention of silence?” I told him, “Silence me if you can."

Well, you try sitting quietly on a stiff bench of a sofa when you only want everything he is and would pull his clothes off in an instant, and lick him. He said he planned to fail miserably, pertaining to the silence, and I was close to laughing & Lord knows what else. “Forewarned, forearmed,” I said, about when he wrapped his own forearms around me -- I almost started to laugh again but he finally tilted his head closer for a kiss, instead.  Oh, it was promising, quite gorgeous, a bit of tongue and getting warmer, and I was already drifting. Then he suddenly stopped, again.  So agitated, from one second to the next:  “Indeed!  Yours tend to betray you & mine tend to go mad, how’ll it be?”  I was thrown but I tried to answer that he should just be honest.  What should I have said, really?  He replied, “You will always say goodbye.  Properly.  If you’re able.”  “What are you suggesting?” I asked.  He understood how awful that sounded because he swallowed & looked away & said he “thinks in terms of contingencies”.  Well, don’t we all?  I wanted to calm him a bit and go back to where we’d been. He was rather pale just then -- I told him I could give him "now", that in this life we don’t have anything else, really.  And he cannot hope to plan much, despite his great skills as a strategist.  He didn’t seem to like that. Perhaps I came close to the issue, though I am not certain. He sat back and stared down at the fire, reflecting inward as though I weren’t there, at all, for a few moments.  I ran a hand over his shoulder and told him I don’t care for goodbyes -- an understatement I didn’t want to explain just then.  And I told him not to be cross, that he really might go back to failing to silence me instead, which had been going quite well, as I’d hardly been able to stop myself -- at which he seemed to come back to me, first in thoughts.  He pulled me to his mouth and kissed me until I couldn’t breathe -- I didn’t even want to, it was perfectly absorbing.  He was holding me quite hard from behind and his free fingers were tracing down the pulse in my neck, it was a bit mad by then, not that we couldn’t hear that clicking -- when he went to unbutton my shirt I was wondering what he might think of what he'd find, there.  Well.  I am not merely a thin red line, am I?  I was trying to remember that crucial fact though it's put them off, before, even when it was faded. He said, “I’m treading?” 

Treading, no. But it's never fun to wait for how that particular reaction, under those circumstances, will play out -- when one would like to be desired and not pitied.  He looked at all the scarring carefully, with those piercing eyes I’ve come to admire so much.  Then he kissed my collarbones and neck, avoiding my chest.  I put my mouth in his hair and pulled off his tie and set it on the table.  He didn’t seem particularly comfortable & I fancied the sofa wasn’t helping either of us.  “As much or as little.  Like I said, we have now,” I told him, and petted him.  He wouldn't let me at his shirt. We kissed but we'd already reached a certain border in his mind & he was elsewhere in his thoughts. I rubbed his shoulder and kissed his cheek, we talked a bit, like friends do. So once he'd seen it he held back even more, or am I imagining it. I will leave this, here.

 

_21\. Apr._

Well.  Negotiations. May I, before you go -- perhaps you might --?  Well.

What is your question?

You might tell me what sort of intimacy you prefer. You would prefer.

Ah. That is not without complications.

If you're uncomfortable, I mean, about your choice. Of me. 

No other course of action has ever suggested itself so clearly.

Thank you, but which --?

I was referring to choosing you.  I should go, Alexander. I would like you to read -- these -- while I am away.  All of it.

Medical records?  What for?

Fair disclosure.

Why, though? Because you've seen mine? It's all fine. 

For a better understanding of ‘why’, or more precisely, why not. Though it’s much better than before.

It's fine.  Please.  Let’s make a sort of pact, okay?  It won’t always happen, it might not, we both know it.  My suggestion is, to hell with over-thinking right now, if it is ‘mutual’, because it *is* no matter what.  We care for each other.  So if you want me, you'll say so, or show me, how much.  That's all. 

Agreed. Of course.

Can I do the same? 

Yes. Read it all? Alexander, it's time I --

I know, you needed to go.  Right. Sorry for this, I'm not good at -- sorry.

No. Do you know the Neva?

River?  No.

It is this colour.

Which?

This one.  

Which one?

The only colour that matters:  this blue, right now.    

I'm sorry, I can't stop this. I can't.

No tears.  No.  

Take very good care, please.  Come back well.  Oh, Lord, sorry.  (Me, losing it.)

How did I ever.

Ever?  When was that?

I don’t recall.

Neither do I, kitty.  

I will think of you -- no, don't close them, no.  I will think of you, constantly.

Thank you.


	42. Beyond the farewells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:45

_22\. Apr._

What I wrote last night was as much as I could remember of what M & I said before he left.  He came by on his way home from sth in Whitehall, to see my work and say goodbye though I don’t think he was here more than thirty minutes.  When I opened the door for him he set his briefcase on my sofa, went to open it, and then seemed to change his mind.  He approached me and asked how I was feeling. He needn’t have because just from looking at him in a topcoat I started to fall apart.  I asked him if he'd like to take it off and we put it aside.  “Show me your frieze, Alexander,” he suggested, and while I'd have preferred a kiss I took his arm and led him to the paper booby-traps I call 'works in progress', in stacks. He found the sketches I’d made of him but didn’t seem to care for them much, perhaps (as I explained) because the filter that is the human eye and heart cannot be compared to the lens.  This brought to mind my Carly and some of our discussions -- not what I wanted on the brain just as M remarked on my "acuity" regarding the rendering of his expression.  I thought he would say more but he set it aside. In fact, he looked very much that way, shortly afterward. That heavy stare is one of focus and not anger. 

First things first, however.  I brought him a cognac and held him a bit by the waist, and let him look through the series in their current states -- he hasn’t seen all of them (Gluttony feels finished now, I think, and Sloth, Adultery and Blasphemy are in their own stages of chronic 'progress' as in real life).  What I didn’t tell him is that they all have little surprises for him, to thank him for what he has been doing.  Of course, he picked out all the hidden texts instantly (they all had the word "generous" worked in & I'd thought they were well-hidden) -- I mean, book, immediately:  he leafed through them and there, there, and there, there.... He put his hand on my cheek and kissed me & asked why I’d done it.  I told him how I wanted them on the walls in the Tate, under everyone’s noses, which finally made him smile.  He took a long sip of the cognac and said, “A gift for me." “For a man who has everything,” I said, to which he paused, looked at me warmly, and said, “Yes.”  Volume, beautiful volume, I was so happy to hear that.  And he rubbed my back and shoulder, precisely where it was hurting me from being bent over the desk.  (How does he always know?) I kissed his chin and he asked what he should bring for me.  I said 1,000 kisses (having in mind 'uninterrupted ones, with your very naughty tongue &c’).  We came back out into the living room & he set down the tumbler.  He was still looking at me keenly (after those little messages) & I asked once more if he’d stay a bit longer with me.  I'd have been more forward but we just aren't there, yet.  Perhaps he felt what I had in mind because he shook his head (he'd already said he wouldn't manage to please me).  That is when I asked him to tell me (before he goes to Russia) what sort of intimacy he prefers.  He looked on the edge of offended until he realised I'd not meant it sarcastically.  I started in with that chat of ours, not knowing what would happen.  

I’d no doubt he felt strongly but there are many degrees of attraction and romantic feeling, expression.  I'd not tell him this & have not written it down but I'd begun wondering if he wasn't asexual, or, worst of all, if he was trying to make an exception out of a friend & it was going poorly for him.  Or that he does not want to sleep with a man.  Or with me, because of my heart.  The rest of what we said I have already written out to the best of my ability.  Dearest, wonderful man.  Who claims to have everything even while having me. That is so lovely, I can't.

I have looked through almost the entire file, my great Forethinker, attributer, bringer of fire to my life.  If only I were more a Heracles he'd not tax his liver.  Though his liver appears to be clean, in spite of evening nightcaps + statins. Aside from LDL which was slightly too high three years ago -- regulated by a minimal dose of statins, and molars that needed re-lacquering, he is remarkably fit.  His EKG readouts are textbook specimens of evenness, as shapely to my eye as his calligraphy.  Lung capacity excellent, in spite of the occasional fags. Did he give it me this file for the sake of ‘transparency’, which is so important to him, because he has already seen my mental health and cardio records?  It appears to have been for the reports from a urologist who treated him for a longer bout of nonbacterial prostatitis, a plague among middle-aged sedentary men. We have the same rare-ish blood-type that makes us both ‘universal recipients’ in case of transfusion.  Useful.  Should not write such things, Lexie.  

We kissed like lovers again just before he left & I may have been rubbing off on his thigh a bit by the end.  He seemed close to doing the same before slowly pulling away.  I had my hand in his jacket and his back was very warm.  The contact was making me hungry, is even now.  He smiled when he took up his briefcase and left.  It doesn’t sound right to describe it as ‘soft’ but believe me, leather-bound book of far too few empty pages (had your fill?) there is such a thing.  It comes from the same heart as the grimace that makes educated, rational and powerful men cower like oft-beaten dogs.  I have seen it happen.

It has been only 10 days since the wedding, OMG.  And I miss so many things about him right now that I'm a complete mess.  May he stay safe.  I need to stop this and go to church.  

It wasn't wise of me, nor fair of me, to assume he would want the same things:  this is what I have found myself returning to in my thoughts.  Fair:  just, honourable, disinterested, even-handed, impartial, non-partisan, egalitarian, equitable, even -- in its parts.  The longer I imagine him, the less disinterested and fair I become.  I could get by without penetration, even mutual orgasm, one can, if he truly must -- age and change and illness are part of life and loss is also part of life.  Now, having made that noble declaration, I don't actually know how to face the eventuality of another refusal. With a smile, I suppose. Patience. Love. Kisses, which are brilliant, when he can focus.

Fairness in expectation -- there can be no such thing.  He would have a lovely turn of speech to encapsulate that. 

The Neva is very blue, sometimes steely blue.  I looked it up.  It flows right along the Hermitage, where he will be the day after tomorrow. 

 

_23\. Apr._

Randall was here in the morning, training with me for the Edinburgh summit, which will be three times larger than Biarritz and related to international security.  M said to contact S, Andrea and Rodney for things, as needed.  I don’t know what he imagines I’ll want to do -- I plan to draw and keep to myself.  And paint with S, of course.

Tailed to church; we tapped our cuffs at each other.  I didn’t look directly at him, I suppose one doesn’t.  I walked along the Thames and yes, it feels fine to have someone near right now, I don’t mind in the least.  “Gluttony” and “Sloth” are finished, and now I am colourising “Blasphemy.”

When M comes back from Russia I shall treat him to a bit of care.  There hasn’t been much of a context to, so far.  It takes time, which he does not spare much of.  Since I am trying not to break down or pace the damned carpet, which has had enough of me by now, I might say a few words about the matter of seduction.  That would be not for posterity, but for you, dear volume.  (Yes, I know.  I don’t let up, do I.  Some find it in their hearts to construe that as a virtue.)  Seduction according to Grandmother V involves manners, grooming, listening, and eye contact.  She was always right, in the way of many in her generation. 

Those also happen to be my four strengths -- had to be, or else -- as even Randall said, focused listening cannot be taught so easily, because it requires a trained memory and intellect.  And interest in people, "which many insist on lacking". I was joking with him about “wallflower complexes” and he explained that “wallflowers” are among the best in diplomacy -- they are 'self-identified wallflowers', he said, "meaning they recognise their tendency to stay back from the flow in a room & work it selectively at a highly individualised level."  Interesting!  "All diplomatic processes are fluid in nature.  They change continually, revised event by event.  Process is central and there is no completion, just like in academia -- your job revolves around inquiry: the formulation of questions and paths.  Consider that there is one overarching process -- toward peace, negotiation, and so forth.  Within that process are strategies for making it move.  Because movement is primary.  Remember that.  You seem to believe that your work would involve closure.”  I commented, “Closure...not my strong point.”  “No, that’s obvious enough.  Your tendency to subject events to continual review and comparison precludes 'closure' to things of importance to you.  But -- you are adept at recognising small signs of change and know which denote progress, with whom.”  Thus dear Randall, much like M, summarises enormous truths in elegant packets of expression that one can later refer to and literally thrive on:  “I am...I can...I shall.”  

To a creature of existential drift, these are kernels with generative power. 

23:50     I cannot sleep.  M's kisses.  For all his self-discipline and the austerity in his manners to others, he is so gentle with me, particularly at first, and I have the impression he is giving me the chance to pull away, but I wouldn’t, he should feel that.  In fact, I may tell him when he comes home, how much I miss those first, very light touches around my mouth all the time, until I don’t even want to talk.  And when I asked for a thousand, it was to be a prelude.  

I would send him a text but despite the many precautions, his staff are only human, and I wouldn’t want to embarrass him over that.  

We got by without texts for eons, did we not?  S would laugh his head off over that remark, I can hear him!  "Aleeeeex!"  


	43. Moving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:46

_24\. Apr._

Perhaps to start, the reason I’ve come to the table this evening for the fourth time and have a lukewarm chamomile in front of me, here. S has been a bit scarce. I understand: he's just married and he's pleased about it, and rather displeased that I 'harbour' positive regard for his brother. I was glad he wanted to come over to paint this morning, though I knew I would have to hold my tongue for two, if not three. We grilled about ten little mozzarella sandwiches like tapas, with some fragrant striped ox-heart tomatoes on top that S had picked up from a restaurant kitchen somewhere. He also brought me my new green leather shoes from Lithuania. Fabulous work. A perfect dark green though more for jeans or cords than tweeds, now that I see them. Anyhow, this is peripheral as much as I’d looked forward to seeing them.

So while our sandwiches were grilling he pulled out several printed pages about a house he and J had gone to see in Eastborne (S. Downs) and asked me what I think of it. As a retirement destination. “I’d choose the Alps,” I told him, “if I had anything whatsoever to retire *from*, that is.”  “With John,” he replied, “soon, Alex.”  “That’s hilarious. You two, there.”  “You think I’m joking.”  “Now, dear, what would you ever do in a tumble-down hut surrounded by pastures?”  “This ‘hut’,” S said, rolling the pages into a tube and holding it to his eye like a telescope, “happens to be as good as ours.  We’re about to sign a purchase agreement on it.  Through a patient of his, I’d even heard of the place before.  No accident &c."  By then I was howling.  He got up and sighed, “Calmly, Alex.  Nnnnot enough sandwiches to go round,” he muttered at the window, and stuck out his tongue as he closed my curtains.  “Mlleeeeh."  "What. Are you -- bleating at me?” I asked.  "No, at a certain sword-wielder of the paper-pushing shogunate.  Stop crying, there’s a postcard view of the chalk cliffs within walking distance, you should come see it.  No cameras either, for now.  None.  Unlike at our flats which are both monitored continually!"  I asked S why he’d just pulled my curtains shut because it makes me jumpy when they are all drawn.  He snorted and asked if I am aware that M can look in on me whenever “I want him to” at my table, because there is a CCTV camera across the way that can be pointed at my street-facing windows.  Of course there is -- there are financial institutions housed in that building and they have at least three of those rotating cameras, and have for many years.  I think the people on this side of the street feel better knowing how well this bit is watched over, in fact.  Well, it is certainly not “repellent”, as he put it, when I’ve nothing to hide.  I could see he was winding himself up over it, so I asked, “When are you even doing all this?”  “Mid-May we’ll start packing up.”  “You’ve not been married two weeks and you’re running off.”  “That is a fact.”  “What is the advantage!  You belong in London.” He didn’t seem to agree or even care to discuss. Moreover, he wants to take up bee-tending. If I didn’t know him better I would swear he was taking the piss from start to finish. SH and honey production?  Queen bee extraction sciences?  And J is watching this happen with his hands folded?  Or has no choice?  Apparently he is still deciding when he wants to do it, that it had been his idea to look at the place but he’d got antsy once S moved forward more.  I asked if J would be working there at a practice and S said he'd easily find work, which I don't doubt, though that sort of move entails a lot of changes for them both and S seems to dismiss them by the dozen.

We nearly burnt all our lunch & managed to rescue the cheese just in time. We added fresh chopped basil and ground black pepper.

S finally passed on his ‘ultimate’ soup recipe, which he brought me thermoses of when I was having trouble cooking and walking and breathing, etc.: 5 lg. carrots, 1 lg. parsnip, 3 potatoes, 1 whole onion, 3 cloves garlic, pepper & possibly salt if one can spare it. Peel and cut all into chunks (fourths/fifths), throw into med. pot of water half full, med. boil until veggies break apart in water when speared through on fork, let cool in pot for a few minutes, blend to creamy texture with hand mixer or throw into blender which has *hopefully* been disinfected ahead of time. Serve with pine nuts on top, almonds toasted on pan or toasted sunflower seeds if one can spare the oils. Pumpkin seeds for prostate health, apparently.  Well.  Optionally cubes of stale/dried bread toasted on a pan in butter and serve as croutons.  Or, toasted meat sandwiches cut into strips for ‘sloppy-eater’s delight/dipping’.  Will try, sounds very easy and on worse days the onion can be left out, I suppose, at the expense of flavour.

Looking in on me means seeing no more and no less than my best & worst, mostly the latter in recent months:  far too many tears, too many of the knit matte Viennese silk black shirts with long arms & my BFF belted house-sweater with large pockets that look like they should have all the world’s top newspapers sticking out of them but usually hold a kerchief and a rapidograf of late. M could see me feeding on groats and boiled fish albeit at an elegant place setting, usually the Staffordshire or Dresden (S likes the one with a sort of radial, starburst-type pattern in the centre -- it once had gilded stars on the rim. He claims rightly that the V&A has some plates like mine in glass cases. I’m fit to be curated somewhere myself, so why not use the damned things?  They are in far less danger than the ones at Baker Street, I informed him, to which he growled that he doesn't throw plates, at least he has not in the last several months.  Mercy.)

Well. Grandmother, you were so right, as always: eat properly -- as you never know who might be joining you for your meals.  Perhaps I should put out a second setting?  Or.  Bad Lexie.

Yes, many buttons, dear, I need many reminders, raging there for you already, imaging you'd drop those awful files filled with war and international lawlessness & come to verify: “Who was it for, Alexander?” For whom, indeed, kitty?

If his shoulders are anything like I imagine them, I would want to kiss every tiny one in that riot of pretty freckles. I would also give plenty of time to those on his thighs.  And watch those sharp eyes defocus and roll up and close: small surrenders.  This has been quite the day.  

Come home and take care of all this, kitty, when I need you so much that I cannot keep my hands off myself.  Hell.  Hell!!!  We must work through things, I need you.

 

_25\. Apr._

I have finished inking in “Blasphemy”. It will be red and green, mostly, with a wild orange sky (not-sky). I made a sort of play on Babel, that people were passing slanderous, misogynistic remarks up a tower of bleeding bodies, victims of trampling, broken scaffolding, slum housing, &c where those at the top address each other and refer to God upward, and do not notice that they are looking into flames of hell, that their world is inverted, and the meek and innocent people they trample on at the bottom are received first.  I adore it.  I think I like it better than “Gluttony”.  Perhaps it should be hung sideways?

 

_27\. Apr._

I didn't mention above re. S's move that he cannot bear to have J at B St under so much surveillance and wants to remove J from that place as much as J seems to want to move *him* out. That he is tired of the noise and wants to be able to think again. I want to speak to M about making a conciliatory gesture toward his brother in the form of reduced surveillance. It really bothers me.

A headache and a haircut. Unrelated. Or are they.

Kitty! "Good evening, Alexander, are you well?"  "Very fine. Are you in London, darling?"  (I slipped and said 'darling' but he is, and may he know it.) "No, in Canterbury."  "It's lovely to hear you."  "The same.  All is well.  Come by at three tomorrow if you can spare the time." A simple call but I could hear he was smiling.


	44. Unknown measures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:47

_29\. Apr._

Thanks to "Sloth" (ha) I've run out of three colours.  At this rate I will have the frieze of seven done within a month, I hope.

Yesterday a bit of hellishness at the start, then more earthly delights than I can wrap my head round.  A bliss-infused evening with kitty and a wonderful morning to follow.  I spent most of yesterday morning thinking about three o'clock:  the rational mind's insistence that I had plenty of time to watercolour was overridden by the usual nasties.  So.  By the time Rodney arrived at 2:30 I'd preened myself to a state -- think Equinox, dinners in Biarritz or the wedding, for that matter.  I arrived at the Diogenes very wound up and found my M stormy and unmoved, outwardly, that I was there.  He addressed me tersely & when he didn't stand (one could not even excuse it as a clash of protocols), I chose not to seat myself and waited to be received in a manner I could accept.  "Alexander," he said, after another dozen or so seconds, "please sit down."  I took a chair across from him, at his desk. He was in the clutches of an unpleasant day, he explained. "Is it not in your clutches," I remarked, to which he literally gritted his teeth.  I had a small notebook in my jacket pocket so while he talked (because he was chatting, though not personably) I worked on a composition of "Envy", depicted as a pile of satellite photos (a bit too personal, that one) & translated a few remarks in my head back/forth until they lost their structure.  In a word, I tried not to explode:  M doesn't know that side of me, yet.  He asked for my thoughts and a discussion about an embargo upheld in the interest of a particular lobby (I should not record here) ensued; I asked re. points of neg. in St. P.  He'd been aiming at access to sat. photos of an installation in the Middle East and had met with resistance and deflective handling of points for 3 days.  His delegation had not enquired after anything directly to avoid handing over peripheral info.  He talked through file after photograph after memo after report, which he was grouping on his desk in fan-shaped piles, as he tends to. 

But this went on for more than 2 hours.  At just after 5 o'clock, he put down his pen and explained while rubbing both his temples that he'd spoken to S and more than half of the members of a committee who oversee S and several others, regarding the move. So he had known already & I shut my book & stood up determined to make a certain point or leave after trying.  I felt like Esther, smartened, wanting the sceptre extended that a petition might be put forward without rebuke.  I might have chosen a better moment, in retrospect (thorny mindset, had been drinking again, perhaps, in the night).  I told him I would want something & he paused & said to name it.  When I mentioned changing the degree of surveillance he said shortly that the security committee will have majority input on this "alternative to a sentence".  I said that certainly he has the most to say and he snapped abruptly not to "imagine flattery would be of worth".  Flattery!  He may as well have sworn at me.  I explained that I want to understand what more I'm expected to stand back and accept.  A bit sharp, there, because he frowned and answered, "Ah, and what harm could come to pass from the truth." That hit another bloody nerve. I told him not to use that sort of empty rhetoric (racket, because sarcasm is racket & I don't see what someone of his intellect needs of it, particularly toward me!)  Anyhow.  He did not care for that & came out from behind his desk.  He was peering right into me & he said I know too much. "Already."  That hurt.  I reminded him that none of what I know or infer shall be held over them.  But what stung most of all was his remark that because of what I know he "will be forced to keep me".  As though I were a frivolous acquisition he cannot return?  "That is less like admiration and more like enslavement, though *whose*?" I asked.  Because I shall not be 'kept' for reasons I do not choose, even by him.  May I mention that if I'd tipped my head forward, we'd have hit one another, we were so close.  Yet it was awful.  "How is it then?" he asked.  All agent, eyes like proverbial tunnels.  No trust. Suddenly, it occurred to me that he was hurting, too, or he wouldn't be shuttering up that way.  I suggested we stop there -- that we cannot be cynical with each other.  But he must explain (his brother's happiness is a concern of mine, too).  I held his wrist.  He doesn't let me hold his hand but I was not about to let either of us turn away. 

After that, he explained the reason for all those measures, that S is avoiding a lengthy prison term, &c (the rest I don't feel I should write down) involving a crime committed in his and J's presence, which I suspect could have been as heinous as (I will not write it without confirmation) and the theft of a ruinous film of said incident on a microchip, which the brothers expect will be used to -- I might leave things there, now.  It all scared me so much.  Moreover, I think it's a serious mistake that they're not telling J at this point.  It has bothered me since S called me over to Baker Street that one night, that numerous people can observe that place, and that they might leap at any chance to catch him at sth.  That M should not allow the committee to use S for political leverage &c that it was a matter of honour.  It got spiky.  It was painful to see M behave that way, even if it was mostly an act to silence me.  He can be terribly cutting and when he reminded me that love is a choice, S's behaviour a choice, their marriage and love a choice (a "messy" one), I said that people don't choose who they love.  He countered, like S would, that they do indeed choose.  He even tested J's loyalty to S, Lord knows what for, and I hope he's not planning to do it again.  He has a set of alternative plans should the film emerge.  OMG, what a mess.  Short of accusing me of acting directly on S's orders, he made it clear I should stay out of things.  He suggested I was trying to charm him, out of a "weakness" for S.  I told him what I think: friendship should not be regarded as a man's weakness, particularly if he believes love is a choice.  "When love lies in choices, then in the ones made by the greatest of men," I said. He didn't have a ready reply to that, not that I was pleased with myself.

I'd imagined he was protecting S from sth larger but not the shame and political leverage in that pending sentence and the risks it entails. I didn't intend to bring that much anger out but I will not tiptoe around him, what for.  Even so, during those few minutes I felt like everything and nothing in his eyes; I wanted to curl up and sleep.  I got dizzy but it wasn't arrhythmia, sth re. blood pressure.  He was upset and asked where I wanted to go.  (Home.)  "With me," he clarified, and ran through several places that I have always wanted to see, in Switzerland -- how he knows them I've no idea.  He continued, saying I would need to work on my cardiovascular condition before going to Zermatt, Davos, and the like -- it was his way of being conciliatory, concerned he'd said too much.  He had.  Volume, may it be said -- I'm not at a place in my life where I need to argue out my importance.  Not with him. 

I did some more drawing while he finished reading a report on Burma.  We agreed to get a cold supper at a restaurant near the club, but neither of us ate much. I think we looked like an extension of the drizzly outdoors and nobody would have imagined we were anything beyond vaguely acquainted colleagues among a mass of commuters streaming homeward from banks, offices, agencies, universities.  His blanked-out eyes took in the entire menu in a glance and then searched my face.  I pushed my glasses on, probably crooked, and read while he pretended to.  It all made me wonder how anyone manages illusions of non-love without it hurting like hell.  And also, how is it that illusions of positive regard are somehow more commonplace in life?  

When we were in the car again, on our way to his place, he reached over and brushed my cheek, looking for a way back from that awful exchange.  I kissed his thumb because it was close and he apologised for the non-befitting scene in his office.  I told him we should let it go and he nodded, and that was that. 

The first thing that occurred to me at his house, when we'd got indoors and removed our coats, was that we were both dressed almost exactly as we'd been at the Glen Burns, a quarter year ago, one which like no other (save that one with C) has marked me so indelibly.  Of course the clicking (M said recently it is closer to a watch tick though I hear it differently) was good and loud, as ever.  M gazed at me, as though absorbed in my choice of coat hook, but he is not his brother, and he suddenly commented that I don't seem to like his furniture, which I couldn't deny.  Another moment passed and he said I might choose a place to rest, in spite of...the choices.  I told him that I would choose wherever *he* was going to be, &c.  He studied me again.  "Mine?"  "Yours."  So we went upstairs to his bedroom, chatting.  And even at the door, he was confirming that choice.  ("Mine?")  

The lightheadedness started again while we got partially disassembled.  'Undressed' would be hyperbole.  We were removing the most annoying objects, such as watches and layers, and setting them on a low table at the footboard of his massive bed, in his beautiful oak-furnished room, all while talking about two of the second-door guards at the MOD.  I'd no idea, after our conversation prior to his departure to St. Petersburg, what I might expect. Beyond resting.  I don't know how I looked to him, but I can guess I wasn't hiding my thoughts very well.  (But would you have, at the foot of his bed?)

He stayed nearer the door, looking over at me while taking off his tie, with enough happening between the eyebrows that I shook my head and asked him to sit down on his own bed.  "Come. Do you know," I said (unbuttoning the paradigm cardigan of the middle-aged humanist), "what I'm thinking about now?"  He replied, "Arrhythmia, mainly."  "Right you are."  He gave me a glance up and down and I wanted to laugh at the seriousness he gave it.  What a scene.  Again, he hesitated, so I smiled and asked if he would know the difference between ecstasy & syncope, to which he admitted that his cook, who was preparing part of brunch for us downstairs, was a retired cardiac nurse.  Brunch:  he'd thought of everything.  Or nearly everything.  "Thank you very much, for that," I said, and petted his temple as he nodded.  And here I may have been making eyes.  "Remember our chat before you left?"  "Ah."  "I asked you to bring me something from Russia, when can I have them --?" (I gave him a little kiss on the cheek, and I felt him smile, it was brilliant, I was so happy to be there, you cannot fathom it.)  I don't know if I should write more.  We've shared something & the above has been a preface to things I don't ever want to forget though I can't imagine I would.

I'm writing this.  Book, your impartiality is dear to me.  I thought it could be very good between us but I'd no way of imagining the way he held my shoulder, though I am not small, or how he looked at me when I told him how much I'd missed him while he was away, how that calm was replaced by kisses.  Finally.  They had gratitude behind them, though there needn't have been any, of course I'd missed my kitty terribly.  Then I remembered I'd not sent along a single word, how should he have known?  In his office, I'd not approached him, I'd stayed across from him, petitioned formally, argued back.  So I put my arm around his waist & told him why I'd held off writing & he said it had been an appropriate assumption & kissed me even more breathlessly than before.  I'd never have managed that, standing.  There was a moment when he'd been all over my neck and collarbones, I was completely gone & he moved his leg so I could get close and feel how hard he'd got, too, he wanted me to know it was all good.  I probably looked like a lunatic by then, but he smiled back & stopped for a moment, asked if I was feeling well.  I told him that never better.  Not an exaggeration.  That prick, OMG I wanted to see his skin.  I told him he should take off the trousers. I didn't manage to get a good look, we were too close.  Not a complaint, however.  That is about when I gave him the 12 buttons on my own trousers to play with. 

In fact I hadn't had a chance to 'allot' anyone that particular task, of course, though I'd imagined it enough. "Maddening," he said. Maybe so.  I pointed out that there were two others inside and he gritted his teeth when he bumped my cock several times (Lord, by then I was gagging).  "Incinerate them," he growled.  "No, I adore them," I told him.  He'd just started taking them down for me when he saw the alchemist's death head on my stomach. I think he was surprised that it had escaped his knowledge.  Even so, his deductions were thorough and accurate -- and he told me, in short, "not residuum, a catalyst."  That I'd got it all wrong, about myself.  Who else would ever understand so well? And we'd hardly started.  He ran his tongue over my neck in a very gentle but unambiguous manner that made me want to reach into my pants.  "Your irises are gone," he told me me in my ear & then shared all the tastes with me.  It was so slow, and deep and good, OMG he was so present.  Gorgeous, having someone close, the warmth of naked skin, a man's roughness and softness, hair, angles, bones, muscles, scars, beautiful sensitive places, lines, tissues with beautiful colours and textures all their own.  Freckles.  Oh, the freckles.  I will need much more time and energy for them all, they are wonderful.  He felt fantastic & I'd have loved to let things go longer while wondering if he wouldn't want to stop me -- I was beyond.  He moved my leg to be even closer and when I told him I wouldn't be able to stop myself moving he looked down and said, "no".  In a moment he was in my hand and I in his, his tongue deep in my mouth, our breathing gone wild, he must have waited days; he was gorgeous, full, hard and leaking, he is quite big, OMG, I am damned lucky, I cannot, book, honestly, write this in silence, because he is, and he is so perfect there, I can't even believe how.  I was thinking of him waiting as I had (not so well managed) while he was in Russia, wanting to be touched, feel needed, come with someone else, just like that, before falling asleep in the short, dark blue northern night, perhaps waking early for a little more.  When he really had me close I think I said something mad, or tried to warn him, or tell him I loved it, or something, and he came so much -- the sounds, the relief in his face, it was so sexy, manly, I just can't describe it, bear with me.  I'd sort of drifted off mentally and started to laugh as soon as I'd gone off, and he was looking at me, if I was all right, and I said, "well that was lovely ha ha ha" and he said, "it was" and I laughed even more, damned endorphins.  It was amazing though neither of us had got out of all our clothes and I told him, "Kitty, we have to work on that".  He smiled and in spite of me being a complete mess he wanted to touch my pants a bit longer.  He likes silk.  And long kisses.  Oh, I can oblige.

(I bought eight, just before meeting S for coffee that day we met up in Vienna -- I was convinced he'd know what was in my rucksack, somehow -- just an impulse, but I'd caught my reflection in a watchmaker's window and had felt so grey and awful.  Then I saw them on a wooden form, perfect, a bit of leg, no seam, no elastic shit with logos which I can't bear to look at on a man.  Ridiculously comfortable, far too smooth to the touch to be decent while not shiny in the least.  The fronts are atypical & tricky but to die for, enough said.  There aren't any in the shops here.  Someday I will go back.  For pants, to Vienna.  Well.  Why am I even wasting ink on them?  Worth every stroke.) 

Where was I -- M liked them.  It mattered right then, a lot.  And only once, shyly, he petted my arse.  And looked rather shocked when I took his in hand, and pulled him closer.  His prick, I can't even, I wanted to lick him off so much but he isn't ready, I didn't ask, he was embarrassed enough and wanted to go.  No rush, kitty, I told him, there can be none where that is concerned, no.  His eyes, just then -- again, hope and embarrassment are gorgeous in concert, much like -- well, what was I saying recently about rose on a ginger?)  I was too drowsy to carry on much longer so I went to wash up. I got on some blue nightclothes of his though they were falling off my arse. We kissed more & he told me goodnight & I slept like a stone, in what was once his Mum's room. 

We met downstairs at ten for brunch.  There was something hotel-ish in it but that's just as well.  I needed to get through some things on my own.  That my heart didn't stop.  Why did I write that down.

Baker Street at noon, he said.  It's their day, the 29th, I reminded M.  "I won't be long, a much-needed break," M mused in reply.  "I don't understand the reference," I told him, to which he smirked.  "Kitty, there is semantic opacity in 'a much-needed break from making love' -- when frankly there can be no such thing."  M raised his brow at me and picked up his teacup. "That would be 'brunch'," he replied.  "You're the naughtier one, aren't you?" I said.  "Given reasons," he answered.  We stared each other down a bit.  My lover takes a foot-long knife into Buckingham Palace, can impale a man's heart on a blade in a second, has the most delightful upward curve to his prick, I thought.  Well.  "Pour me some more tea, darling." 

I believe 'brunch' has become irreversibly charged.  We got on the subject of sibling rivalry & he dared doubt (winding me up like the wall-clock at my left) that I know numerous G&S operettas by heart (-- all roles).  "A wager.  At stake, red," M said, "for your cardinal sins to come." (Watercolours for my frieze, he meant -- as I am fresh out of carmine, my favourite of them.)  I made eyes and assented.  "Selected parts from The Sorcerer," he said, and tossed a linen serviette suggestively onto the tabletop and stood up.  "Unaccompanied?" I said, licking the backs of my teeth a little, "fingers like those" &c.  He looked up but didn't manage to say "ah" as he might have, normally:  "Hhhhh -- so.  Whether you'll consider my playing 'accompaniment' is --" he said flexing his lovely hands, "open, to debate.  I haven't played since the halcyon days of the Major administration."  "Were there ever any?" I asked.  "My point precisely," he said, sucking in a breath and blushing around his neck.  (Oh, kitty, you are easy.  Kudos to Carter for trying.)

In a dark corner of the living room, surrounded by paintings, he has an upright piano, similar to Auntie Claudia's (such a sad moment when she sold it to a local school and they came to pick it up, a month after we'd lost Henry).  M flipped up the fallboard and sat down at the slim bench, in shirtsleeves.  He was very charming like that and I wanted to kiss all the freckles on his nape.  But.  Red, I thought.  Red.  (Ech, and the piano was frightfully out of tune.)  I sang 6 fragments according to what he was playing by ear, Gracious Peter, it was beyond known measures of preposterousness, you must trust I am not exaggerating this time, beautiful book of mine.  And how M was chuckling to himself.  Devil.  Among the bits he chose:  "Chivalry is an ingredient sadly lacking in our land!  Sir, I am your most obedient, most obedient to command!"  At the very end, he skipped back to Act 1 and I had to finish with the ultimate tongue twister, to which I added a sinister pseudo-Irish accent (because I can't do them well anyhow):  "For he can prophesy with a wink of his eye, peep with security into futurity, sum up your history, clear up a mystery, humour proclivity for a nativity x2.  He has answers oracular, bogies spectacular, tetrapods tragical, mirrors so magical, facts astronomical, solemn or comical, and, if you want it, he makes a reduction on taking a quantity!  Oh if any one anything lacks, he’ll find it all ready in stacks!"  Of ultra and secret and dangerous stuff, you see I'm unable to sing off the cuff, I remarked at the end, while bowing & trying to catch my breath.  Ultra secret being that I ever sang all of that, too -- I made him promise.  (Once you've shared what we had in the last few hours, really, though.  Apparently he felt the same?  He is badly out of practise and completely missed a few keys here and there and swore down at his unresponsive fingers but it was so hysterical I had tears running down my cheeks from laughing at us both.)

I finally sat down with him on the bench.  "Kitty," I said, "my brother played these songs & I've reason to believe you did the same, to S.  He and I will carry that repertoire to the grave."  "At which point --" he started to say but looked at me in silence instead of going on.  And wiped a last tear from my chin, and cupped my cheek in his hand.  It was the end of our songs, the end of our games, and the beginning of fraught, suddenly very needy kisses that nearly ended on the carpet.  But it was time to finish dressing and go.  He wanted me to take J out for an hour so I had to stop by the flat -- for pants.  ("Silken underpants, perfume, priorities, Alexander.")  And then on to his office -- for his files.  He told me to watch S and named all the things he would do to deduce X & Y.  Moreover, he was spot on.  S sniffed us both at least twice, studied my shoes, cuffs, everything.  So, then.  Baker Street.  I'll write more about S & J later on.  For now I have something from Russia, which I'm to open and have a look at before evening.  He put his hand on my hip as we kissed in the car and his fingers were tracing over the very slight seams on my pants (-- hopeful that there wouldn't be any? or hoping they were there?).  He put this parcel in my hand when it was time for me to step out of the car.

OMG 48 watercolour paints from St. Petersburg.  These colours are literally brilliant & so workable.  His note:  "Only 6 reds but you’ll get by.  Dining in, 20:00."  He was thinking of me, there, too.  Ha!  One red for each fragment of that blasted libretto, then? 

That's so sweet, I can't. 


	45. Cobalt, lime, carmine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:48, 49

_30\. Apr._

 

Yesterday I went along to Baker Street to take J out for a pint so the brothers could have a chat.  Oh, Lord, and S was sniffing us both!  I think J saw him doing it.  He started clearing his throat with his mouth shut very tight. He has numerous ticks, even more than S, who rarely stops fidgeting unless he has his eyes closed or is looking at something in his hands. M looks static, by comparison.  In summary, suspicions of soap-sharing would have interfered greatly with their discussion of perimeter security.  Mercy, those two.  I took leave of M and told him to text me, to which S remarked that he'd show his brother how. M sighed and propped his umbrella against J's armchair: "One may easily avoid arrest for aggravated assault, thus our plans stand" (addressed to me).   

J & I walked to a pub at the edge of Regent's Park, something with Minnow in the name.  J asked after my health -- heart first, heart second.  I tried to state delicately (confirm) that yes, something is taking place -- on cue he asked if it's more than ... and I said (referring to what we have in common, that 'face' differs from one's home life!) "shagging?"  Poor dear.  It's so easy to embarrass him.  There is history to be had, indeed.  Our waiter was a bit keen and at first I thought it was directed at J but I received a number, in front of Anthony (3), who was watching the waiter's proximity and the opening of a bottle of mineral water/pouring very carefully.  J didn't notice A.  I was on pins by then and after we left I told J that one of the things M had brought along was a file -- I don't want to go into detail here (should not) but it contained reports and photographs about criminal incidents / intentions toward him and S at Baker Street.  It scared me, I told him to look at it and almost cried -- J chalked up my reaction to Warfarin ("flighty" I can't stop it & this journal contains watermarks of my "flightiness", does it not).

Last night.  I ask, is there anything more beautiful on earth than a pale pink nipple in a riot of auburn hair?  So delicious.  I can still feel it prick up a bit against the tip of my tongue.  My mouth is not itself, even now.  He has beautiful skin.  I adore all sorts, dark, pale, whatever, tattooed or scarred, freckled, mottled, the lot.  Now imagine that my M has exquisite gold freckles all over his arms, shoulders and thighs, I just can’t.  He thought I was joking that he is lovely, that silly being.  He actually started to laugh, one of those where I can see his canines better than his eyes. 

I'm getting ahead of myself (referring to linear writing).  I came to his house for dinner at eight with hopelessly stained fingertips (wonderful colours, all of them!) but otherwise better prepared, shall we say, for the night.  He'd arrived shortly before me and wanted to wash up for dinner, so we went upstairs and he talked about some of the things he'd been reading in the afternoon (openly pleased to share it, though I didn't understand him well, something concerning the re-commissioning of dated missiles, &c).  He talked of upcoming court rulings in Strasbourg and apparently we are going on the second, for one night, to see them.  More meetings to come, too, regarding the pavilion, he said, Edinburgh + he sd our book finally went for 18.7K -- so much happening.  I wanted to stop him for at least a half-minute and try to absorb it.  Him.  Crackling with energy, rubbing his hands.  He said something to the effect of "I'm no artist but consider historical and contemporary forms of character assassination" as a motif.  Character assassination:  he remarked that we would see it in France.

I was a bit distracted because he was sort of "disassembling" again and I took off the cuff buttons for him this time.  He seemed roguishly pleased about something and he kissed like a madman.  I told him I wasn't sure I could keep up with him, to which he replied no worries: as S had just reminded him, he is a 'tedious deskbound creature'. 

Now I've no idea how, but he knew I'd not taken all my pills yesterday.  Reprimand re. taking risks with my health, on his 'behalf' -- implying the obvious.  Somehow I'm not sorry.  He left me to get ready for dinner.  Nerves still a bit raw after that talk in his office and "forced to keep you" which has left its mark.  When I rejoined him downstairs at the table I told him why I'd not taken the pills:  one will do mad things in earnest to please his lover.  Will he not.  

We chatted over a small supper, mainly about France.  Because of the May bank holiday I will not see Randall before we go but M wants my blood drawn in the morning (receive nurse at 9).  I asked about the city itself, the trials and the arrangements for us there and he explained that we will have rooms on separate floors.  I will "be able to visit the suite for longer than in Biarritz".  Longer than, say, forty seconds? -- I held my tongue before that came out.  One should be grateful.  Remember.  Patience, Lexie.  

Once we'd eaten he was finishing a glass of wine & reading his last report for the evening:  "Alexander, what is it?"  (I'd been staring -- he was so lovely, though.)  "Regarding a visit for longer than in Biarritz, darling."  "Yes?" he said, flicking page after page, as he does, imprinting them whole.  "How shall I receive you?" I asked.  He raised an eyebrow but didn't answer.  The if, when and how are too non-specific at this point, apparently.  Well.  As we were going upstairs to his bedroom I told him I'd thought of him all afternoon.  He smiled to himself when I told him -- "I'll make a scene."   "But not alone," he said, which is very much what I was thinking, too.  By then I was opening his shirt and he was letting it happen, very much at ease this time. He turned me toward his bed and unbuttoned my shirt and trousers from behind, while kissing that place on my nape, and I was staring down at my destination, shall we say. Nice. One hand around the base of my throat, the other over my cock as he pulled open the placket on my trousers, oh Lord, I wanted it.  It's hard to write this.

I got in bed (crawling faculties intact) and he was just behind me, wanting what to him feels unspeakable but it's very sweet that he likes to rub off a bit on my pants.  That someone so dear can be so starved, that these things feel off, or inappropriate.  (Honestly, kitty.) He didn't want me to take them off and told me, while leaning over me and tormenting me with the flat of his palm, about an area of Istanbul where the architecture is more cubist and art deco in flavour & where there are numerous stone cutters and tin workers & woman who hand-quilts beautiful silks into masterpieces of sartorial art (I don't doubt it, he was quite keen to describe them) namely kimono-like gowns with sleeves embroidered in flowers and trees, that her work had been shown at a cultural exchange in Brussels several years before and had caught his eye.  I asked him why he'd thought of it and he whispered that I should have one of them, that I would wear it well. And nibbled at my ear and held my chin up until I.  Was.  Losing it.  This while he was running his other hand over my entire stomach, groin, crotch, not stopping to let me pull off my pants, teasing me.  The idea of all that, I mean the silk, seemed to arouse him very much. He was killing me like that, stroke by stroke, rubbing over my arse:  "A deep cobalt blue, lined in lime?  The silhouettes of trees, growing up from the wrists, down from the shoulders, twining in the middles, at the elbows, in carmine."  And would I like that, he asked.  Would I. I was literally so light-headed I almost moaned.  No, I did moan.  I told him I don't feel I need much in the way of clothes or things, hoping to convey "give me you, that, now" (what could one even utter).  And I got out of his grip, startling him because he thought I wanted everything to stop & turned around so I could see him.  Quite mad, and ruffled up, as he goes. "Oh, that is much better," I said, and bumped the cold tip of his nose with mine and licked his lower lip until he started to smile, "and you've left plenty for me to take off of you. Let me have a look." "Amor caecus est, and in that spirit --”  He reached for the switch.  “You were lovely for fifty years before this particular case of blindness set in.  They stay on."  (Pants or lights? echoing a fragment 'my candle or my darkness' mentioned earlier on)

How.  Did I get so lucky.  Taking off his pants, I tried to lick his fronts, they were soaking, but he didn't want that. And he is hung. OMG, I can't even.

 

_01\. May_

 

"Paring down to five words?"

"Useful if form is to be primary.  Without from, the meaning pales."

"Do you mean to say that you disregard the longer, less succinct thoughts, though?"

"Like that one?  Alexander, this is uninteresting, merely an exercise."

"Do you ever write about me?  I write about you, you know."

"Oh, really?  About what precisely?"

"Your freckles." 

"Bugger." 

"All of them, yeah."

"Thus a new writing book?"

(Me, laughing)

I thought that would be a good way to inaugurate this new volume, which is almost like the one from Andreas, except the cover is dark green leather instead of brown and the pages are a bit warmer in colour.

Tomorrow morning, Strasbourg.


	46. When alone

_02\. May_  

As I sit here trying to kick the first dent into this new book I feel (recall) how forced (vain) journaling felt in the beginning.  Now I see I'd have lost myself in increments without it, and what a time to be writing, really. 

About what I noted down yesterday -- M didn't say if he writes about me in those 'five-word essay' entries of his.  All I know is he does them sideways in columns in the notebook he keeps in his jacket pocket.  I believe we have a "tacit agreement" re. not discussing scribbles, my artwork excepted (ha) but I would like to know what his are like. 

I am still at "1. And 2. would 3. you 4. like 5. that".  He'd got so hard just then.  I've no words.  Kitty, that you even asked. 

20:42     In-hotel-alone-in-Strasbourg.  There's a "5-wd-essay".  He did come in to say goodnight, kissed my hand and asked me not to answer the door, not to order in any beverages & not to leave the hotel for a walk under any circumstances.  A bit edgy outdoors, still, I suppose.

Because of the verdict.  The people's tears, the protests.  One violent and with arrests, not far from here.  A political prisoner who is dying of complications of diabetes, hardly treated enough to live on, and fight for his release, very upsetting.  He has a wife and child with congenital heart defects and they live in squalid conditions, with no water in their flat.  I can't believe what I am hearing, and it is described with the same wringing of manicured hands as "you don't say, my neighbour had the same".  Nobody indoors here cared a flying fuck.  It made me ill -- an EU-sponsored conference occurring simultaneously in which such mind-numbing points were being batted about like colourful balloons several streets away.  I got a headache and missed one meeting but attended two others with M in the character of consultant on cultural exchanges between EU and non-EU economic partners.  "You appointed me with a certain range of authority," I told him, "when I've no idea what I'll be in contact with, darling."  He snorted and admitted he'd chosen the identity for me as 'an alternate prelude to pillow talk' (about Turkish silks).  While I blushed and squeezed my teeth he exhaled noisily, blanked out his expression, turned and left me "to talk to someone from Arles".  And if it's *really* about bringing more anise cakes to London -- seriously.  This, my dear as-yet-naive and awkwardly splayed volume, is my kitty, flirting.  Madness. I have an entire CV with my purported career, here at my side. I might read up on myself and what I supposedly do?  My stomach is a wreck tonight, bleh.

22:25     I asked M why he'd not wanted me to travel eastward by plane & if the situation had clarified.  He remarked that it had not and didn't explain anything else.

Meetings tomorrow. Breakfast downstairs with M, a session on agendas, a meeting with the Swiss consul + others?

I am drawing a doodle of the trial for M with a perma-marker pen someone left in the desk, here.  There's a little surprise in it, for him, too.  Lord, it's getting late.  In all honesty I'd hoped he'd pop by, though he did say he wouldn't be able to.  Ultra ultra is.

00:03     Should go to sleep but can't.  Just saying, the fact that Sophie and S are both leaving London for good is burning at my edges all the time.  M is about to be my only one.  (I won't say 'umbrella' when he has that awful knife in his, even if it can be argued that when one pushes my man's buttons, he will find himself sliced into.  Unfortunate analogy.)  Friendship.  I didn't want to write much about it at the time but by the end of March I was looking for evidence on which to create either a bridge or a foxhole.  While I'd felt that my company was valuable to him in some way I'd not noted any desire for my attentions, from his side.  Are we going to write about this?  Poor new, creaking book.  Lie still.  You've no idea, have you.  Hello.

He shows no interest in anyone, you know, meaning the sort of casual glancing over people, even the lovely ones, as they pass by -- he does not bother.  I have mentioned before that he does not initiate any warmth.  He doesn't glance at girls' ankles, men's chests and the like unless he's deducing, which he avoids ("periphery, Alexander, periphery").  In public settings he doesn't treat me with any familiarity, either & I remind myself frequently:  1) of my place, and 2) who/what he is, in fact.  (Work/these artificial settings have little to do with what really happens above -- the real players are out at their own meetings, using these events as pretexts/covers.  Like right this minute, Lord knows what they are really meeting about. 

Thus, when we are out and about, for instance at the MOD, we don't appear to have as much as shaken hands (indeed, we haven't!) and we hardly look at each other.  I have this Randall-inspired loop I play to combat frustration:  1) stop thinking for him/others, 2) assume nothing, 3) avoid regret which is the true opponent 4) question the frustration to break it down 5) pretend it's all a blasted film, preferably "The Party" (sth I have in common with Randall:  that film -- esp. the drunk waiter).

In the public settings there are so many things to control so when we are completely alone again and he drops the act, approaches with searing attention, it such a relief, to put it all aside.  When he looks at me that way.  I miss him tonight, really.

This doodle is a bit dramatic (heavy-handed) but I'll give it to him tomorrow.  It's only satire.  "Character assassination number one".  He was right -- a charged motif, and we have seen it, here.  Scandalous.

I have a certain impression (I should not be putting this thought to paper but who else shall I tell!) -- I have never thought M feels drawn -- what am I trying to write.  Like S or me, or J, for that matter.  I still don't.  Am I saying this?  His mind 'allows' desire within his own ceaseless system of connections, thoughts, details -- I fit somewhere in it, he admires me, is wonderful to me when it matters, it shouldn't concern me what he "is".  As if that were a clear-cut matter, anyhow.  There.  I needed to say it.  I think I am overreacting about this behind-closed-doors tonight.  When I'd considered dating, I'd hoped for a less secretive relationship where this is unusually so.  Enough, Lexie.

It's after one and I still can't quite sleep.  I am trying to express that important, wordless things are happening.  I wish I could give him the same -- that I were bright enough to look into him so easily and give him what he needs.  It is a relief to let up on words and feel rather than to describe feelings, aloud:  it has been an amazing thing, the way he knows (gets) things.  All along.  And it's just the beginning.  It's easy to forget that. He must have thought things through before/during/after Russia.  Something has changed for the better.  That we try to keep the pressure low, perhaps. 

It's so late.  I am to get up in five hours to get ready for a day of meetings, plane at six-fifteen in the evening.  Thoughts not conducive to sleep.  I adore his hands and every golden freckle on the backs of his wrists.  I would have kissed some of them, just now.  Goodnight, darling. 


	47. Smudges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:50, 51

_03\. May_

 

We're in the air over northern France and I have a moment to collect my thoughts.

All of this.  Yet another example of why even waiting for my kitty should be considered among my pleasures, for what is to come just after.  And not only the hand, just before we were to leave for the airport (still weak waist-down).  He spoils me like mad where he can and that is the truth.  He refuses anything from me in return, which simply must change.  Shall.

Today has gone like this:  in the morning, breakfast at the hotel -- certainly not watery bangers on toast and five-minute eggs, or cornflakes with whole milk, no.  My portion was made only for me (perhaps because my stomach won't stop growling, fed or not, and I cannot deny it).  Followed by a cup of white tea with rice and rose petals which could not have been on the menu.  M was indulging in an omelet with steamed wild mushrooms and rye toasts with turkey cold cuts sliced paper thin and yellow bell pepper rings arranged very much like Venn diagrams, underscoring the character of our conversation.  Need it be stated that I still come around slowly in the morning?  Each organ seems to wake at a different time.  No need for specifics, sorry.  I nodded more than anything else.  But he was in very good spirits.  And approved of my satire of the trial, if a hum and a movement of one eyebrow count.  "'For kitty'," he remarked (of course he saw the letters I drew all over the people in the courtroom), and swallowed a sip of tea.  "Europe, rather," he added, and moved it out of the way.  I didn't register that at the time & he chatted about "pattern-breaking drivers in collaborative economies" in anticipation of a session we would not be attending.  Anyhow, breakfast was very fine and I was happy to have him there.  When he was drinking his tea his fingers were so very lovely.  I might do something with mine.  I mean.  I might do something about them.  Ha! 

We headed back to our rooms and while walking toward the lifts he instructed me to dress down a notch for the sessions, redress before going to the Swiss consulate, &c.  I asked him to my room and the door almost slammed behind me.  He caught it and clicked it shut and -- he already looked like he wanted to sink his teeth into me, so hot, out of nowhere.  I put my hands behind my back and stood just in front of him.  "Mycroft, you said the next meeting is going to be rubbish.  Which means...."  "'Imprecise, you're right.  I ought to have said 'vapid and tendential, thereby attracting a crowd'," he replied, as all my blood made to escape his canines and rushed between my legs.  Hell and hell.  Due to a lack of qualms I made eyes and asked if he'd dress me down himself.  He sighed (hhhheh, ah).  But he leaned in and loosened my tie -- with a single finger, in a manner that left little room for the imagination, because it was filling the room, not unlike this damned clicking valve.  I pulled it off and dropped it and he grabbed my cheek next and nipped my lip, I growled and put my arm around his back.  "Keep.  Going," I said.  He literally chuckled into my mouth and ran the backs of his knuckles over my abdomen, more or less over my tattoo, ergo where my pants start.  And bumped my cock.  Well.  I'd dressed up, in the toilet, earlier. Of course he knew, it's not that these trousers leave much to the imagination under Circumstances.  So, he does look.  Thus a half-day of horniness re. looking me over in ways I don't see.  The conference session annoyed us both, though for different reasons.  Agendas, sustainability, I can't even.  I didn't absorb the point, but then again, I'm about cultural exchange pertaining to silks.  M disappeared just afterward and we met up again at the hotel just before we needed to go to the consulate.  I asked him to tie my tie, though it wasn't a pretext.  He was in a greyer mood by then and preoccupied, so I let some of my (not so little) hopes slide, he tied me a trinity knot, and we left a bit cooler. 

Later, I was in his bed, resting (he was petting my head and back while I curled up against his chest and traced over some of the pinstripes on his waistcoat) and he took a call & excused himself. Not the preferred outcome, but soon he came back to the room and fixed a rather triumphant look on me.  Hot, like he'd managed a coup (not the best turn of speech).  "Everything's all right?" I asked.  "Congratulations are in order, Alexander."  "Oh!  So congratulations! Come here."  He crossed his arms and looked down at me.  "You've got it the wrong way," he said, "Herr [L.] of 'Der Spiegel' agrees that 'Character Assassination Number One' embodies 'the core and its rot'.  It will be cover number one -- on newsstands in three days' time, for their special feature on 'internet justice' --" "Whaaat!!!" (That was my contribution.) " -- A history of online campaigns juxtaposed with the tribunals and their premises, founding statutes and so forth.  You'll need to sign an agreement, of course.  And you might breathe?" I accused him of taking the piss, all while laughing and crying in my hands until I really did start to have trouble breathing.  I asked when he'd done it and he said that editor had been at that session earlier on, liked the sketch and simply took it on M's recommendation -- it fit their issue.  It wasn't ready, or anything, ech.  I tried to explain that but M just kissed my forehead and starting undressing me (ostensibly so I could breathe, ha).  I'd got dizzy with adrenaline by then.  "You caught the spirit for Europe," he said.  And told me he'd be going to Geneva (and I / we will be in Arbon, right on the Bodensee) when the drawing is published, to avoid intrusive publicity, until a press kit can be made according to the prevailing direction of the questions, &c.  I can't believe it, I've always dreamed of -- this.  Overwhelming.  Like so many wonderful things he is doing for me, and I have no words.  Beijing, the book, the titles and travels, his care, I just can't.  He also said there might be something more to discuss, there in Switzerland.  I may have something to say to him, too.  We'll see, we'll see.

"Darling, how."  "Must I repeat myself:  your acuity, portraitist," he said.  I actually bit him, in the end.  How he purred against my neck, blissed out enough to be heavy-headed, the way he looks at me as though I were a beautiful thing.  When he is the one. 

Easy to forget I've a bit of a problem waiting at home. 

I didn't want to note it down on the 30th because I wanted to think it through w/out writing something nasty about my best friend in anger, because I was angry.  He really overdid things this time, or should I be more honest on the page here and say, once again.  I don't know what he is playing at, now.  And I'm put out over the time & place he chose for his remarks about M.  It's one thing to say things to his husband, or M, in private.  It is another to make a mockery of my feelings in front of his artisan tailor Frederick, a man I'd just met / had wanted to meet, who knows nothing about me whatsoever except that I am seemingly desperate and bloody ignorant about my choices in life -- a more sensitive person would imagine I am a fool for choosing to be *there*, as well.  People can take things personally.  S didn't bother to mention that the subject of his snide comments was his own brother -- it would have lessened the worth of his words even further -- and why would he do so?  He thought it was hilarious. 

(You see, beautiful book, your antecedent ran out of space for me at the end of April, when said incident took place, and after its months of altruism I did not want to finish its last page on a decidedly sour note, particularly that when M & I were alone again, we had a wonderful evening, nicer to write about than S saying that my irredeemable paper-pusher would like to keep me in a golden cage & will never concede to marrying, that I have time to change the course of things.  The Brazilian had asked if I would be marrying but it was about indirectly congratulating S on *his* marriage -- & S started filling in things.)  

I might be "an idiot" but I don't go out of my way to flaunt it.  Dear.  We need to talk.  If S wants to hold forth on my marriageability may he do it within his own four walls.

 

_04\. May_

 

Like my suitcase, this thing needs to be unpacked.  There is a thing, you see.  More particularly, something I want to feel again.  This may be mad, or perhaps I've got it very right.  I suppose I will find out, will I not.  Since the matter of the silk, it has been on my mind frequently.

I have two photographs taken by C -- (no, 133 of them, many flattering) -- but a certain two pictures, by C, of me.  "The images in question."  (Yes, C because I don't want to conjure things, right now.  I would like to spend a night in one bed with M, and not talk in my sleep about sb else, which I know I do.)  I took them out for the first time in ages (& some have got a metallic sheen on the corners, now -- not well-enough rinsed of fixative).  In these two C and I had gone to a concert/party for the retiring ed-in-chief of Playman Tops -- the last of the concerts C & I went to together -- and he'd been so pleased, dressing me (this, this, not that, you'll see, not that one, etcetera, no you're too fucking good for those, not that) and he'd forced me to get made up (I was so annoyed -- "I don't DO this, I don't.") and he told me I would be one of the least made up (very true).  Peter Murphy was also there, C hadn't warned me.  Lord, have mercy.  He sang 4 songs in his bit & then a short one for C:  A Strange Kind of Love, because I had drunk more than half a glass of Chardonnay -- just enough in my case to be flipping mad, stand up and shout, "One more before you go, good sir, we've not got enough of you!" (OMG.  Did I not say in my other book that I am masterful at embarrassing situations? Give me one drink & I'm delusional, tearful & ruttish & not always in that order.) Many clapped their assent & he did oblige us (C sd because I was the hottest audience member but I'd probably scared the man, let's be honest) & sang it unaccompanied (the guitarist had gone to the bar & about 10 people in the audience joined in at the end to sing as PM left the microphone -- beautiful -- I can't even see my pen).   

So, C was choked up in the cab -- the beginning of our difficult nights before he left me.  Back at his place, he asked me to draw it in darker for him, and gave me a stick of kohl, a tiny black cone in an ornate orange enamelled holder.  I did it but then I saw my resemblance to Mum in the mirror and got upset (I was drunk, indeed) and instead I tried to rub as much as I could from around my eyes, smudging it.  He said, "Oh, oh fuck, wait."  "No, I have to piss & get this off my eyes, no."  He grabbed his Hasselblad off the tabletop and fired it once, wound it, fired it again at me, no flash, set it down, gulped, and grabbed his flies next. "Go, and you come back here," he said, biting his lips. He started pulling himself out and I was in such a hurry, and reasons, and I could hardly piss. "Pretty," he said, "oh fuck, you were the most fucking beautiful in there, you were," he said, and I got on him. He kissed my eyes, OMG. 

Spectacular turn-on & I've no clue where that came from.  My shirt is open (mark from his lips, the scar very white as well, and I am sitting at the edge of a chair by a mirror, hand up (blurred).  Mouth open, eyebrows maybe darkened in a bit as well, I don't remember.  The lens captured something.  I think I looked very me, in every way, marked, scarred, excited, embarrassed, soft, close to tears, sort of laughing, horny, smudged but mannered, in a nice shirt at least, put together my own way.  Convinced I'd keep him in London.  Pretty, perhaps.  Before my David died and I went so grey.  Well, C left nine days later.  He developed these quickly, at the last minute.  I only accepted them because I thought he'd not leave, and kept them because I thought he'd come right back.  And then kept them because he did not. 

21:40     Damn this old story.  One I've literally turned into a series of abbreviations for my own reference.  Perhaps I've idealised it?  I don't even know anymore.  

And now I have gone and smudged this, too, blast this all.  Smudging.  Fuck this.

This should not be on my mind.  Though to be fair, it is not about C, tonight.  It is about me this time round, me with a real man, who wants me and knows how to behave about it. Hand, pen, paper, I assure you I do not mention this out of lust or longing for C.  Perhaps I shouldn't have written it down anywhere but this is mine. All of it is mine. We are what we are. I am mine, too. 

23:05     Only for bedtime, only a little, occasionally. Not the taupe of outdated desktop monitors.  I'll find something lovely. 


	48. Pickings

_05\. May_

It's warm today, a thunderstorm expected in the night.  Humid and not the sort of weather I do well in.  The smells are sharp, too & it's hard to keep the windows open.  Mundane functions like ordering in the shopping (finally) and making efforts to dust, staring down at desk.  Very restless, to be honest, singing German pop songs aloud all morning, a dream of Berlin.  A call from Anne re. commission (I accepted, 2 drawings about tea drinking (steaming cups/a hand holding a cup), though I will be in Arbon when the deadline comes up -- she said to scan). 

And I am sitting on pins waiting to hear more about Der S.  I hope I don't manage to offend people over that picture.  It was only meant for M, as a response to his suggestion about portrayals in art of character assassination.  I took the story from the book of Mark, beautiful marked book, when the sick man was lowered through a hole made in the roof of a house, because there was no way to reach the Healer inside, which happens to so many -- access denied, even to basic services, and in mine the dying prisoner is lowered through the roof of the European Court of Human Rights, to a group of onlookers, but there is no healer in the place.  Nobody is moved at all, several are snapping pictures on their phones or gesturing in annoyance.  And of course it says "for kitty" for the world to see -- M claims it is not easily discernible & were it, it hardly matters, that people read volumes into things without any text to go on anyhow.  I wanted to see him this morning but he is in meetings for most of the day, of the sort I cannot take part in, sth in conjunction w/ Geneva.  Thus the housework.  S is also busy for now but plans to drop by mid-afternoon.

19:29     Not a pleasant conversation.  S pulled the curtains in my kitchen again.  I told him to stop it, and opened them. He sat back from the table, ostentatiously. I started straight away, and explained that what he'd said at Frederick's was unfair -- he cannot characterise people's commitments to each other as "cages" & that marriage, if anything, is the ultimate yoking (he did not appreciate the 'biblical' imagery and batted it aside) but not a cage, either. That cages are of another character. He essentially said in reply, "Good you were paying attention, can't always count on that."  I told him to mind his mouth. He glared at me and said, "Listen.  You're setting yourself up for a fall you won't pick yourself up from."  "Icarus, again?  Burning and falling?" I asked.  "Alex...for *God's* sake."  I might have spared him. He was hiccoughing when he came in and I've no doubt his stomach was hurting.  We were supposed to be having a nice cuppa and chat re. the move to Eastbourne (wants to talk about what he's going to have built in for J but has no idea -- yet -- how the Security Committee is playing with my M over it:  one has even placed a recommendation in front of him, pen in hand, regarding changes in housing for poor families, changing qualifications to allow middlemen to rent and receive hefty subsidies, opening the door for discrimination, unofficial subletting and the like, some absolute rot he would never touch -- in exchange, imagine, for a three-year reduction, OMG, he had to refuse it and it was upsetting -- S cannot know these things!!  Anyway...) 

So I said, "You won't change my mind about your brother, I have my opinions."  "I've no doubt they resemble his opinions."  Oh, that fucked me off.  He knows how, he does.  I was actually thinking:  no modals, avoid subjunctive, Randall would...as pathetic as that sounds. But try having that man glare at you at an arm's length while you explain without showing that you are nearly on your knees in love.  S hissed, literally, "You are in recovery and this is no secret agent story, haven't you noticed?  This is your life.  He is using you and tiring you. That's what he does."  "In fact, he's helping me.  I want to tell you something wonderful, about --"  (He cut me off.)  "Not interested.  I suppose you think you'll change him, make him 'care', maybe even care for *you*?  You're like those women who --"  I slammed my mug on the table and spilled tea everywhere (Prince Albert didn't crack).  "Watch.  Your.  Mouth," I interrupted.  "You're like people, fine.  *People* who validate themselves by choosing partners with abusive tendencies, violent tempers -- manipulators, and take on their 'healing' at great personal expense.  Acting as host bodies!" 

I might have held my Scorpionic tongue but God help me, I could not anymore.  And though I have always admired him, I could not bear hearing these things about M and his intentions toward me, when I have kept my eyes open, and when S is also sharing a bed with an enabler, like himself.  I said, "Yeah, I know, I've seen that happen," and licked my teeth at him.  He watched and went so pale, nostrils flared.  "Shut up," he growled.  OMG I may have made a huge mistake though I'd had more than enough from him.  "Don't talk about your brother that way," I said, "to me.  Are we clear?  I am in a relationship with him."  "That much...is true."  "Meaning what?  Say it. To my face, get it over with."  "Don't be an idiot, open your eyes!"  "You share my thoughts," I answered.  He gave me another cruel, appraising look and shook his head.  "Where is he?" he asked, eyebrows leaping as though it were a real enquiry.  "Meetings."  "What kind?  Mmm, don't know? Does my brother tell you what he gets up to?" "Stop." "Secrets are precious. Friends so few. Why would he." 

Oh the rest was also awful, and I don't want to write any more.  

01.15      OMG did that even happen.  The storm was wild -- fallen limbs in the parks and squares, they said on the radio.  I couldn't sleep because of the thunder and I was at the table in a white shirt and pants, listening to a classical station & starting to think of a certain photo a bit too much.  Then I started to think of M's prick, how it must feel against the palate, so long, how I would so gladly suck him off, and soon. If he only wanted, gave a little sign that I could. I took out this book, intending to write but got distracted.  And.  I heard a single scratch at the door, and the lock clicked open.  My blasted un-pick-able Bramah.  You know that sensation when a pint of saliva seems to rush from under your tongue at once, your eyes go hot & you you feel you could do awful things to someone's neck arteries. I pulled the largest boning knife out of the cutting block, wondering if it could be S, coming by for a late and very inappropriate apology, at which I wondered whether I should really be -- well. Details.  Just then I heard my M's voice from beyond the kitchen door:  "Put that down and close them."  He stepped forward and nodded at the window.  "It's you," I declared. (I know, book, but in my defense, most of the blood was out of my head.)  "Good morning," he answered (my wall clock claimed it was 00:40). Once I'd shut the curtains and replaced the knife on its block, I said, "Good morning, darling.  Why are you here?"  He crossed over to my table and tossed down three tiny metal picks, one with a bend.  “You don’t bluff,” he replied, and approached me until he was close enough that our shoulders would have touched, had I slouched any more.  “No, I don't.  How did you know I was thinking of you?"  Good question, Lexie -- with a hard-on, low pants and a shirt not keen on staying by, either.  He was, by contrast, in the dark three-piece he'd had sewn for S's & J's wedding, tie, watch, everything.  A gentleman, returning home in the middle of the night, still in the body-armour of the workplace.   I asked, "But how did you get in?  You can do that?”  “My brother and I occasionally held burgling tournaments as children.  Even so, I’d never had a reason to try my hand at a Bramah,” he said, sighing airily as I shook my head at him.  I wanted to open his flies.  But we're not there, not yet. “Your reason, now?” I asked, and dragged a look over him. Mercy, hot.  “Stated," he replied, tilting my chin up in his fingers and holding my eyes as only he can.  "That you'd not had...a reason?" I asked, and he shook his head.  "That you don’t bluff."  He ran his thumb very lightly over my mouth and took in my attire, my state.  Well.  What state would you be in?  Honestly, those pants were useless. Useful. Never mind. "Never again for any camera, Alexander."  "No, kitty, I promise."  I wanted to take his hand but I didn't know what he'd want.  He was so calm, it was quite the contrast.  After a moment more he leaned forward and pressed his mouth over mine, and I couldn't stand it anymore.  "I have to," I said, "while you kiss me, please."  He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and backed me out of the kitchen toward my sofa in the dark, and helped me down without stopping those fantastic kisses for a second.  He wouldn't let me take off any of his clothes or touch him.  His lips were all over my face and neck and I was sure he would finally go lower.  He didn't but he gave me a hand and kept his tongue deep in my mouth until I came next to him (did not take long, embarrassingly enough). 

"Kitty, you.  Now you."  "No, not tonight, no."  All Whitehall, as though nothing.  That he'd not broken in at nearly one in the morning, to jerk me and kiss me goodnight, in a word.  According to 'our pact', he explained & I started laughing (blasted endorphins).  "You missed me, too," I said.  He didn't answer, though I count the smile I got out of him as well over a thousand words on that.  "You were looking in on me?  You were."  "Ah, that wasn't for me?" he asked.  "It really was."  "Yes."  A last kiss, a little bite, and he was gone.  So was I, on the sofa, there in the dark.  Poor, long-suffering shirt.  But I will sleep like a stone, now that I've got that written out. Gracious Mother.  

I sincerely hope he was driving and not Rodney, just saying.  Deskbound creature? Who would ever believe me?  But *we* know, dear book.  Do we not.  This is all just hilarious, really.


	49. In beautiful environs

_07\. May_

Not holding together well, missing my kitty, especially after dark.

Called Monica re. next week's anniv. and she will not have any part. 

That it's already been nearly three years.  This in-fighting between the H brothers must stop -- I am all the more convinced today, remembering my own disgusting behaviour toward my brother, the last thing he heard from me.

22:05     I should not be rehashing this.  And yet.  The things S said -- shockingly rude, and each carefully chosen to instil custom-crafted doubts.  That takes so much energy and thought.  I wonder if J shares his sentiments regarding M's character and work?  Or if this is something associated with J --?  Because generally that is the one area he is so explosive over.  But if I didn't know better, I would say this is more about me, and him.  That I have 'spread myself thin', S said, just after complaining that I am away frequently.  That his brother had hardly travelled anywhere beyond the home/work circuit for nearly a decade until having someone to "lug along" on his "campaigns".  He actually implied that I am desperate for male attention.  I could have broken things.  I spent at least an hour in bed over it.  There is no reasonable explanation for resorting to such emotional remarks, and there were others.  But consider, S:  how were the founding moments of our acquaintance and who chatted up whom, groped at whom first, for what end, and asked for favours afterward?  Just saying.  Consider what it means when someone is clearly not happy for your only positive feelings about yourself, and is even actively pulling you toward (giving evidence in favour of) doubt, misery?  M says nothing about or against S, ever, unless I move the subject myself -- I have no intention of signaling that this has happened.  It is not my place to fan flames when it is between S & me.  I see no signs of M using me to control his brother or even influence him, as I'd originally feared he might, after we'd first met.  And I see no evidence that he interferes with any of their plans.  What is the issue!

Conclusions:  S is poisoning himself and watching me closely for symptoms:  Eustace, dear old man, you were always so right about these things.  I can still hear you, moderate and wise, regarding David.  "Do not be changed but for the better, do not be moved but for resolution and compromise.  Ignore it.  Ignore it all.  He is poisoning himself.  Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit." 

Tonight I have come to a painful conclusion, one I will hold in reserve for the ultimate in difficult chats, should it come to that, and at this rate (and with S about to move away, OMG) I believe it will:  this sort of envious, spiteful rhetoric is happening because S did not have the kindness from M he deserved and still needs but cannot admit to wanting.  Add to this the surveillance.  The threat of prison or a hospital, no matter for how short a time.  The marriage.  Everything.  Me.  Though I play a very small part, very. 

I can refuse to add to it.  I shall refuse to add to it, I should say.

 

_08\. May_

I'm writing this from one of the noisy, small charters.  Bumpy today & we've not been able to unfasten ourselves and move about.  We're on our way to Geneva.  I'm taking a shuttle to Arbon with a nurse, Jerry.  It's about bloodwork.  M worries after another incident with arrhythmia and the levels of W after the last time -- I will be taking a higher dose soon, the tan 3mg or the turquoise 4mg (for now adding a low dose of aspirin to existing prescription), as the levels still fluctuate  due to metabolism, stomach issues, the diuretic effect of tea, who knows.  I don't feel like noting this, here. 

I look forward to seeing the countryside.  In the car this morning we were talking about what I would be doing with a bag of pencils + time and paper, and M remarked that the Continent won't mind itself and I'll find plenty of characters to work on, as the Swiss fancy themselves well-behaved yet their true selves ooze out in amusing ways -- perhaps they do though I'd considered the English unsurpassed in that regard.  I told him about the commission for Anne and he countered that I can expect to hear from the Spectator upon my return.  Not that I will have an ear to spare for them, he claimed.  No idea what he means.  He was preoccupied and didn't say much more than that, before we were surrounded by people. 

Unfortunately I didn't get to kiss him goodbye.  Such is the game of "appearances" we play and shall play.  He gave me a folder with reservation information and an envelope which said 'open at will' on it (drink me!).  

21:42 I finished the cup sketches for Anne first, as it was drizzling outdoors, and a receptionist scanned them for me in a back office.  The card tempted me all afternoon, well into evening.  I found myself dining alone across the room from the male nurse, Jerry, who politely refused to share a table out of some protocol or another.  The envelope/card was in my jacket pocket even then, warming me.  I finally opened it here in bed and it read merely, "May I have five words?"  I texted him:  "Missing you in beautiful environs."  His reply:  "Carouge unaccountably colourless.  Sleep well."  I responded, "One thousand required upon arrival".  To which he wrote, "Surpluses permit more generous allotments."  I left that alone which is not to say I won't dream of it all night.  Oh, kitty.

 

_09\. May_

Sunny this morning.  This is one of the loveliest places I've ever stayed -- the room could have been designed by Jens, in fact, for its use of intarsia and the natural wood grains, contrasted with slate and greenish glass.  The furnishings are integrated into the walls in a sculptural fashion, and even the technological solutions are hidden in wood.  "Dune" comes to mind, though the view of the water ruins any further comparison.  I have an enormous picture window in the sitting room that overlooks the Bodensee and it's breathtaking, really. I feel I could forego breakfast over the view. 

I'm not here under my own name & M told me yesterday that starting this morning I might avoid reading online news -- he predicts a storm of immoderate comments, both of praise and censure.  None of which are of any importance to me, personally, he explained.  I've no idea what he means.  So, breakfast.

9:00     OMG, the telly was on in the breakfast area and my drawing was being discussed on Al Jazeera, which was in turn being discussed on SRF Info.  "Das hat die Kultur der Gleichgültigkeit gegenüber unzulässigen Praktiken -- sogar auf höchster Ebene ans Licht gebracht!"  Well. 

I have just checked in with Jerry, who drew my blood for me earlier on, and I'm going for a walk to the port since the rain has let up.

12:15     On posters, at the Tabak-Trafik and other street kiosks.  And again, in a bookseller's window.  It's bizarre that in this smallish town I passed it four times in a few minutes of walking from the hotel to this port to look at the boats and sketch them.  

Fine, I've just bought myself a copy of Der Spiegel, you'd think I'd stolen things by the adrenaline I got, I could hardly ask and dropped two francs, which rolled under the kiosk (the gentleman gave them back -- Swiss hospitality, indeed -- though he remarked that my accent sounds 'agricultural'.  Austrian, I told him, to which he nodded an 'ach so' but was unrepentant.  I've just made a cartoon for M of the kiosk-man hiding behind his glass barrier, forcing people to bend down to ask for their political rags.)  I also got 'Heute und Morgen' at the bookshop (!) so I am set for reading.  Of course I left my reading glasses at the hotel. 

It's breezy and there are families marching along in front of me.  I cannot concentrate on any page, this one included.  I miss my handsome, sexy kitty.

The old town here is pretty.  I prefer the aesthetics of the alpine region -- I might take M up on his offer re. his 'hamster run' and get my condition up, after all.

A call from kitty!  Due to my surname, he told me, I was taken for a German, that D.S.'s editor isn't talking & they've still got it wrong and have harassed a retired cartoonist from Heidelberg, trampling his periwinkle flowers, &c. "Ah, Reuters, AP, Bloomberg, AFP, APA" (and went on with a few others) "have bought limited rights to republish portions of the original article or your illustration, I'll show you the particulars in person though by then the pastiche phase will have set in, don't go online for now, rest."  "I adore you," I said.  "Do take care," he replied.

 

_10\. May_

I read all day and made some little drawings for fun.  The nurse took me to the bio-renewal sort of place (beauty-dungeon in appearance, odd equipment too sterile in appearance to be entirely painless in application, stone walls) in the cellar, here, and they carefully tried to massage some of the nausea out of me.  My drawing has gone so viral I can't.  I should not have looked online.  M was right.  This part was clearly not orchestrated.  M will say none of it was.  Nobody has reached me, personally, of course -- as I am an unknown, my identity is being discussed very little now (fortunately) while the drawing -- well.  It has become what some dare call 'an icon' in 48 hours. 

But what about the prisoner?!! His organs are failing, world.  Stop drawing large-eared, hawk-nosed politicians of the EP in his place!  Don't ignore his name just because it has so many consonant clusters and takes effort to look up!  

We all need healers, one Healer.  Talk about that, please.  The lack of the Healer and what it does to the human heart. 

My mouth is watery.  I want to vomit.  Control yourself, can we stop being pathetic?  M will be here tomorrow but I don't know when.  Shall I show ingratitude in the form of nervous ticks and indigestion?  Or shall I receive him for a proper celebration of our first month together?  Almost-month?  I must pull myself together.

Dear book.  Any regrets that you are a favourite colour of mine, such that I reached for you and not another?  


	50. Arbon with Kitty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:51

_11\. May_

I was sitting on a bench in front of a gallery called Bleisch, near the castle, reading the last of Heute und Morgen, having explored the colourful Wochenmarkt and picked up something twisty with copious amounts of cinnamon and hazelnuts for my kitty from a nice baker -- when I could feel M coming up behind me.  I will never fully understand how that works, whether it is something molecular & not his gait, which isn't distinct, objectively speaking.  I turned around just as he was within speaking distance.  He was dressed so informally he seemed far younger and brighter all round -- in a yellow Oxford shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, and a tweed suit in a ruddy brown colour (small deer, rust, not unlike my ginger self as identified by S's Russian synesthete recently), his jacket over one arm, a brown briefcase.  The humidity had seen to his hair, and he was on a backdrop of enormous lilac bushes and blooming chestnuts just beyond them, rather dark clouds and bright sunlight, as one sees in the spring near water.  His reserved, thin smile was quite out of step with the way his eyes were glittering, full of ideas (and I dare say satisfaction at my discovering him).  He was a lovely sight, worthy of a painting.  I wanted to leap over the bench (can I leap?  I'm not even sure) throw my arms around him and kiss his entire face, nose for last.  But I had to nod politely as a wit-gathering tactic, set my reading aside and stand, though even a handshake was out of the question.  "Mycroft."  "Alexander."  "It's tea time. There's a Teestube just over there, and I've got some twists for you...."  "Dinner, later," he countered.  (Avert eyes, gather things once more as though they weren't already accounted for.)  And that was that.  We walked back to the hotel, he had a word with the nurse, and ordered supper ahead for me.  As we walked toward the elevator I noted his bag was nowhere to be seen, so I asked what his room number was.  With a shrug that was anything but casual, he stated mine.  And instead of expressing what I might have, I stared and started wondering how on earth we would fall asleep together and who I would most probably talk about in the night.  Sleep-talking, as I may have mentioned elsewhere, is an issue.  It started after we lost Mum and got far worse after I got the first valve. One of my counsellors claimed it was trauma but I'd more readily associate it with long-term effects of operations and anaesthesia, which we know little about, in fact, as I was recently reminded, in January. (I was tested by a neurologist because of my age + the degree of the emergence delirium; it appeared to be an extension of that sleep-state, or a reaction to anaesthesia, but could not be unambiguously determined.) Shall we make a long story short: sleeping over is not a strong point of mine; I leave, my partner leaves, or I don't sleep in the same room. And I cannot be a secret agent.  That's the explanation I like to give myself -- it saved me from a very dangerous career in service of Her Majesty. 

Anyhow, as kitty and I went up, I thought of things and wound myself into a state -- that I might mention C, or K, or even Mum.  Or admit to M how gladly I'd top him, curse that Barcelonian decorator, I've no idea.  Well.  Once we were in the room I greeted him for all I had.  Desperate for male attention?  Absolutely.  He put his arms around me (his shoulder creaked -- so tense -- what horrors were they talking of in Geneva?) and rubbed my spine with his fingertips.  "Half the European press, that half that still writes," he murmured, "and here you are.  How are you fielding it, Alexander?  Better than yesterday, I see.  Don't read any of it.  You were anxious last night?"  "I'm perfectly fine.  But you're driving me mad already."  "How so?"  "You look...as though I should take all that off you, for one."  He smiled and I put my head on his shoulder and it was so good to have him there.  Cedar, orange, the leather folio, his skin, his heat.  We were, shall we say, at completely different speeds.  I'd have gone in for anything, and he wanted to kiss.  Well.  Book, you won't have it easy.  He did catch up, and when I had that beautiful shirt open I spent some time petting his chest while he told me about some of their meetings and a few anecdotes I cannot write down because they are suggestive of an ultra decision.  We had almost two hours to enjoy each other before dinner, and they went far too quickly, kissing and talking.  In fact I am writing this while waiting for him to finish a shower.  I am not finished with him. 

Dinner, then.  Dressing, just over there.  Quickly.  One does not simply emerge from a bathroom already half-dressed from a shower, ginger kitty.  Excessive cruelty.  What goes on must come off, however:  that is the nature of things, so dress thyself, dress.  Yes, putting down the pen, now...dinner it is.

 

_12\. May_

Since I left off with dinner I can mention that it was entirely vegan for both of us, which surprised me.  Porcini mushrooms and tiny violet Peruvian finger potatoes, yuba rolls stuffed with spicy vegetables and candied walnut sauce.  I finally asked him while I was waiting for him to drink his wine if the entire mess over the drawing is really all right, if anyone has been negatively affected.  He started to chuckle, swallowed what he had in his mouth, and promptly exploded with laughter.  I looked across at him, going red in the chest, his eyes watering, all his teeth bared, and how he was helpless to stop it.  I waited calmly, which seemed to make him laugh even more.  "Kann ich vielleicht helfen, indem ich Ihnen ein Glas Wasser bringe?" our waiter asked, after rushing up to us out of a dark corner somewhere.  I said my "nicht erforderlich" and he said, "Wir lachen hier nicht so aufdringlich!"  When M had caught his breath he said, "All laughing in Switzerland is expected to end promptly at ten."  Thus M left the last of the wine and I followed him out the door as he continued to expel what seemed to be hours, if not longer periods of tension.  Perhaps months.  I've not seen him like that.  When we were in the elevator and he was dabbing at the corners of his eyes with his kerchief and occasionally sniggering to himself, it occurred to me how impossible that sort of scene would have been, even a month ago, when he would hardly smile at all, like every positive thought had to come so far that many simply did not surface in time to be seen.  I was touched by that.  If I have anything to do with it, my pleasure, and may we be asked to leave many, many establishments over mad laughter.  He is a handsome one, and when he laughs it is powerful, indeed.  (So apparently the political circles are finally being forced to respond to the drawing and once we are back in London -- after final preparations with Randall for the 3 days in Edinburgh -- a statement will need to be made available.  I'm not keen on being interviewed or photographed but it may come to that if it is the only way to remind people of Bahlul-Hafiz Djamilov himself.)

When we were back upstairs we looked out over the water together and I was so overwhelmed by the view and the comfort of his arm at my back I couldn't say anything sensible.  He didn't want to stay at the window, though nobody could have seen us, it was very dark, save the coloured lights from the ports, all thrown over the water in jagged patterns and pulled side to side by a breeze.  He took me on his arm toward the bedroom with intent & kissed me until it was hard to speak, which is just as well. We took off most of our clothes & got in on my side where I'd been dreaming of having him some hours before.  I reminded him, when we were warm under the blankets and he was petting my head, that he'd told me in Strasbourg we'd have something to talk about.  And his calm vanished. "True," he said, and sighed loudly. Under such "circumstances", he explained, he'd not planned to say "it".  He said he'd heard something, a signal, about a threat.  That the source is reliable.  It refers to something (imprecise wording, Syrian - Arabic - English) as (should I write it?  he has said I needn't edit myself, that nobody will reach my things) 'a thrice airborne blight'.  That it is coming to Europe, and as I understand it, all the meetings and travels of late have been his and others' efforts to unravel the meaning of that threat:  3/3 times/3 times before?  Why airborne?  Airborne, 3 times?  Mechanically, naturally?  What sort of blight?  Agricultural?  A natural plague?  What reference in literature, history, political moves, what viruses and poisons can be carried by air, how and who might manage it?  When? 

He is doing the lion's share, of course, as their "clearinghouse" who looks for patterns and formulates the directions of further inquiry for the agencies.  He has not found anything very useful, yet, nor have his colleagues with whom he has had a series of ultra-secret meetings.  I am so worried for him, actually, that he is taking on so much.  Grateful that he told me what is wrong.  However, that discussion came later.  At that moment he was adamant that I give him my attention, and asked me to promise that if he needed to remove me from London, I would do as he asked.  That it matters more than "other pillow declarations" of the sort I'd expected. He had me there. But I agreed that I would listen.  And then he told me some things I admit I'd wanted to hear.  He explained cursorily how it is that he'd ever started to admire me.  From afar, after vetting my contact with S and even when I'd been in Austria.  That by the Equinox party he'd wanted to be at "whatever proximity" I would tolerate.  How he'd almost stayed an anonymous admirer of mine -- who I'd never have been able to see or thank.  How little and how much had stood in the way, of us.  How I'd no idea anyone cared, or would care, at all, let's be honest, I had very dark thoughts some days.  I'd no idea anyone would have noticed my absence, much less that anyone with such a wonderful heart and mind wanted my friendship.  It was starting to pull at me very much but I didn't want things to take such a serious turn, in bed of all places.  

So I told him I'd sussed out his part in supplying my medical records to S, and that he'd been the one who'd told S about my condition.  And yes, he'd sent Sid, a trusted military nurse, who usually tends to special services employees in a hospital somewhere in Northern England.  M knew everything he wanted to and more about my recovery & discovered I'd likely be leaving my flat, soon.  Sid was due to return to his regular post. A guard of kitty's drove my cab to the Glen Burns (he'd known to exit and open/close the passenger door for me, I'd never realised that). M was first to receive word about my chosen destination, and he inferred that out of obstinacy I'd later visit the library upstairs to see the papers S and Jens had worked on.  Rather than follow me he took the secret stairs as soon as I had begun my slow ascent, intending to observe me at my reading; once I had turned and acknowledged him, because I fancied he was staring, he struck up that odd conversation. He said that given my state I'd been remarkably alert, but we both know I had a lot of meds in me. I pointed out he'd not shaken my hand in greeting, to which he remarked, "You wouldn't have hidden the pain caused by extending your arm, much less the gesture of a handshake. And the moment had passed." Very true. Then he told me something awful -- we'd met before, in hospital, when I was delirious & imagine that I took him for the devil, come to steal my soul away. OMG. I've no idea what set me off -- the crook of his umbrella?  Or his air of authority (its finality)?  The sight of a tall, very well-dressed and keen-eyed ginger, with sharp canines?  Worse still, I showed him my fist and tried to exorcise him from the doorway, in Latin: Tu autem effugare, diabole, appropinquabit enim judicium Dei! -- I remember learning exactly those words so I could shout them at my brother during a certain garden party, arrgh -- thus my penance more than a quarter-century later, when my kitty, who'd cared to check on my recovery, got *that* reception.  The nurses admitted I'd been contrary, but this is a crowning achievement in embarrassing moments, and may I never outdo myself, damn it.  (M also mentioned I'd thought S was a priest.  He never told me I'd done that!) "How could you ever speak to me again?" I asked him, and I did want to know.  "How could I not? I knew where I stood," he said in his calmest voice, just before laughing heartily at me. I asked him why he'd decided to wait for me in the library, that particular day.  He said, "As soon as my brother was out of town, you left your flat.  Far too early." "It wasn't, and I needed to get out."  "It was worrying."  "You dear man.  You dear, silent -- why didn’t you speak to me sooner?"  "Alexander." "If I’d had any idea."  "It would not have gone well."  "Perhaps you’re right, but let me fancy I’ve had you longer."  "And that would serve --?"  "To write over so many nights without you." He couldn't find an answer for that. I turned my head at the wrong time and bumped his dear nose rather hard with my cheekbone, and before I could say a word he shook his head and huffed as he does when he is smiling, embarrassed, and I said, “I adore it.  How else would I find --” and he was showing me before I could finish, how best to find him in the dark when he follows the sound of my voice, and I do prefer his methods, I made sure he was aware that "more" is a favourite word of mine, too.  Lord, my knees are weak & I am seated, it was that good.  I don’t believe anyone ever complimented that -- smile, eyes, hair, other better bits, but not my voice.  And not that way.  You can’t imagine, long-suffering volume, how nice it feels to hear that from a man who tunes out so much in such extreme depths of frustration:  "I've no desire to silence you, tell me more." 

It is absolutely impossible, dear book, to feel unattractive or unwanted under those lips.  That's how it's been all along, and I may I bring him the same happiness.  "What is it?" he asks.  To specify clearly exactly what, sometimes for his amusement, other times to make me summarise.  This time, teasing.  Not that I wasn't ready to tell him what I wanted.  His tongue. And his hands in my hair, which had got wild.  And soon it was far more meditative, and we were half-wrapped in the sheets, mostly wrapped in each other, and he was so gentle the entire time, petting me and looking at me, totally absorbed in whatever it is he sees in me, I had to move, it was lovely. He purred into my mouth and rubbed off against my pants -- that’s a sound that literally makes my eyes blur when I think of it.  I spread my legs for him and imagined how that would be, him fucking into me exactly that fast, not only against me, though it felt fantastic to get him off.  And I believe he might want me that way someday.  I put my leg around his arse and pulled him against me and he came like mad, and said my name very softly and thanked me.

Kitty, may we lose count quickly, I said just after midnight, and told him there was something I wanted, too.  He looked very serious, even put off, but agreed.  And at his insistence that losing control repels him and he doesn't want me to experience the mortification, &c.  I told him, kitty, shut your eyes if you must.  And after hearing out his many concerns I finally got him in my mouth & it was fabulous, he was so hard.  Glorious male.  It had been ages for him & I don't think he'd ever finished that way, and he couldn't with me, either.  For now he still has some issues to think through.  But when he very slowly gave in, and stopped explaining things, it was brilliant to feel him respond.  I couldn't see his face but his silence was, in this case, consent.  I took a small breather because I'd got dizzy (did not say so!) and kissed his cheeks while he made a point of reminding me of sth to which I told him, 'frequent intubation in childhood, darling, seriously..." -- I hadn't heard him laugh like that.  Or I had, just not in bed.  He asked, referring to 'the pact', about giving and taking pleasure, how I see it.  I'd no idea how much anxiety he had over the idea of reciprocation, how one should.  There are no scores or counts or limits, except what health throws our way, I told him, and tried to keep some of the heaviest facts between men, of potency, age, needs -- as open as possible.  That is where love comes in, I do believe that. And I'd not considered his perspective, on me: the younger one, more experienced in taking pleasure, one who can, conceivably, draw comparisons, feel shorted. He didn't say much in conclusion and I wasn't going to draw it out of him, but importantly, he was left with a broad grin on his face when he reached for the light switch.  And so was I.  I told him he gives fantastic hugs and he started laughing again.  I don't know why, but that's all right.

As expected, it was difficult to fall asleep next to someone again and I don't think he managed to sleep much, either.  He wanted to touch my shoulder or back sometimes which was fine, but not sleep-inducing.  I may have slept a bit after three -- he told me gently over breakfast that I might consider having my septum corrected.  Blast.

We fly back to London in about four hours, this time from Friedrichshafen, just over the border.  Our shuttle is leaving in a few minutes so I will pick this up another time.


	51. Taikomochi and not in jest

_13\. May_

"Character Assassination Nr. 1" is all over the news-stands, here, too.  Madness.  The nature of the viral image.  At least I've nothing to be ashamed of, in it.  The good news is, 30K is on its way to Djamilov's daughter & wife & they should be able to buy visas and get to some proper medical care, we will see.   It's quite complicated.

Kitty is terribly busy.  I won't see him until tomorrow.  My door-lock will be tightly fastened, either way.  Ha!

There is certainly a satire story to be written about going to "Liberty" (Regent St) for shopping under the watchful eye of Anthony 2, the sharpest & most zealous of the guards.  Consulting covertly was a complicated enterprise.  I was in a mood, however.  "Cody, brother," I said to the be-tagged gentleman closest to cosmetics.  "I can count on your discretion."  "But of course, sir," the salesman said.  "Cody" saw Anthony (terrifyingly blocky and looks bulletproof all over, is twice my body-mass for sure), a few yards away, side-eyed him carefully and said, "what shall I get."  So I lowered my voice even more.  "If you were to paint my eyes.  Nothing vulgar.  Something for lips, no colour, delicious.  Rose if you've got it.  Brushes, remover.  Everything.  Choose it all and pack it.  My card."  "Yes, sir."  "And a tin of bay rum shaving creme, I saw one with a touch of sandalwood."

Cody ran off and returned with my card in a small leather portfolio (signature, averted eyes).  He handed me a bag, Anthony looked overly concerned, and we left.  OMG.  There was a time I'd not have managed a word of that.  Understatement.  I've been looking at those photographs by C.  They embolden one.  If I am wrong -- just saying.  If I am wrong.

A quick stop at a farmer's market for strawberries, most of which I gave Rodney, who I've just discovered has three darling little children, all under 10.

16:22     Frederick, S's tailor, has called that my order is ready but I don't want to go back out again and trouble everyone with another errand.  Tomorrow and the next day he is working on the site of a film, apparently (costuming) so I will pick it up another time.  I've no doubt it's beautiful.

Randall will be here in the morning at 10!  This time preparing for remarks about the drawing and framing arguments in negotiation, pre-Edinburgh. 

21:25     This could be quite mad.  The point is more about how I was feeling then, and when I saw them.  If M didn't mind it, and I have a feeling he would not, I could wear this to bed for him, and the silks.  I would not last long.  I'd have to warn him.  This is too dark to start but fucking turning me on and it is merely practise.  Sorry, book, not sorry.

 

_14\. May_

Randall was brilliant, once again.  The first thing he said:  "Can't say I understand the popularity of that drawing, it's heavy-handed and a cheap attempt at polemics using Christian imagery in post-religious Europe.  Rubbish."  "I'm sorry you think so," I said.  "No you aren't," he said, and snickered, "at least you'd better not be."  "Oh, mercy."  He'd got me again.  He was here about two hours and we were talking about haters and negotiating shared points of agreement, resolving conflict.  He pointed out something crucial -- as usual, but this matters now.  All pain from hate will fade, has faded.  He doesn't talk about his life much at all, but he alluded to prejudice, and how those incidents are in our hands -- at least how long they hurt, is.  Change is difficult.  However, once one understands how little one is responsible for the *source* of the hate, and how much one is responsible for controlling one's own fears that the hateful rhetoric might be true, the act of putting a stop to the negative interaction through disengagement should become easier and easier.  Complicated.  I frequently over-think the fact that I over-think.  I told him this and he reiterated that self-awareness is not a liability or a hindrance but a pathway, a way of being, and that fear and hate can have no place in that flow.  I could have hugged him.  

All the problems finding a common language with S right now (he doesn't text, either) are getting to me.  The things I might have to hear when I begin to address the matter of my work publicly.  And it will be very public.  In the Tate, in Beijing, in the press, everywhere.  The work I take on to help kitty.  The hate we will get if someone sees us together and assumes (rightly) that my position is due to his favour, and not (only) my merits.  OMG.

15:23     Kitty is coming for teatime and I've made crepes with strawberries, and a vanilla creme sauce that I'd gladly pour over him.  I might do, because my hands have decided to shake.  Damn it.  This morning's topic was about controlling fears?  The pathway, Lexie Bertie?  From kitchen to toilet and back?  Is that how it is?  How I hate these pills.

I haven't seen M since we returned from Switzerland.  Again, it is concerning the IIIAB problem, and defining the meaning of the "three", for now -- he's been in numerous meetings I cannot go to.  These are moments I wish I were brighter. Well, if he were gluing pottery shards I'd at least hold them together. 

A reminder that I have to go to confession though I'm not ready.   

19:45     I can't even. He liked it, dear book, and I'm still trying to get over his reaction. When he got here I buzzed him in and cracked the door (he was upset that I did that but I wasn't quite dressed). He greeted me through the bathroom door & asked if I'm feeling all right. Oh, was I. I heard him go sit down on the sofa about when I was trying to put myself together -- waistbands, pants, bother. Never mind. Cody chose very well, almost too well.  I went in for three tonalities of grey, rimmed inside in black, not vulgar in the least.  I reeked of iris (overdid it, nerves) & I'd chosen the Chinese blue silk scarf, stuffed it in my shirt, stabbed it through with Auntie Claudia's swallow pin, and essentially we had something resembling early Bowie dressed to go out for the milk (bottles delivered then, I know), that sort of thing.  Lord, the risk, but it made me so randy it was ridiculous, more than I'd thought, it was very freeing and mad.  When I came out and saw the back of M's head, there in the living room, I got very nervous and sort of started mid-sentence:  "So.  Under our stairs.  That time they were ours, I mean. You asked me for something, Mycroft."  I meant 'my agreement that you might admire me' but I didn't know how to put it, just then.  He replied, "Yes, and you stated your conditions."  Instant apprehension, and I do mean edginess. Our exchange nearly took on another meaning, right there.  I don't know what he thought I was putting on the line just then. Perhaps it was because of the way I'd opened the door, I'm not sure.  I said, "Yes, I did, and I want to show you something.  You've seen it before, but this time it's done my way.  Look, please."  He turned a bit at the waist, and then stood up politely.  He seemed about to say "Ah" but paused and exhaled a breath I'd not seen him take, as he does sometimes.  Quite contrary to my concerns that he would be troubled, or ask me to go and remove it, he looked me up and down, back and forth, raised an eyebrow and said, "Could be bolder, really." 

We sort of stared at each other. "Could it?  All right," I said, and laughed, I couldn't hold it back, I was so shocked.  He did not smile, nor did he seem put off, so I stood and waited for him to process whatever on earth he was thinking of me.  "Well," he finally remarked, "I knew I'd shown my hand."  "Did you," I said, because I had no idea what he was referring to.  He got that, and filled in, "When I said 'resembling kimonos', recently, referring to the embroidered kaftans from Istanbul."  "Yeeeah?"  He approached me and looked at my eyes, rather than into them, which felt odd.  His pulse was nearly as crazed as mine; I could see it in his throat.  "I had in mind the taikomochi.  Frankly, I see certain analogies to you," he said.  "To male geishas?" I blurted.  To be honest, that was not what I'd wanted to hear just before offering him a cup of tea.  "I wasn't entirely certain how best to preface it.  Alexander.  A taikomochi," M explained, "was many things.  But not a courtesan."  He reverted to a lecturing posture, a bit.  "Uh -- good?"  (That was me). "He was, however, a person of many talents, a trained artist, an actor at events, a counsellor in political decisions, a humourist, satirist, singer, performer of speeches and poems of his own authorship as well as other writers', master of tea ceremonies."  "And...they painted themselves on occasion," I added.  "An aspect I h - adn't -- " he started to say.  (He very rarely cuts off a statement, may it be said.)  We sort of stared at each other.  "Yes, dear?"  "They were companions who followed their Lords to battle in times of war and advised them.  Armed them.  As I said, there are areas. Of correspondence."  "Thank you, kitty." He tipped my chin up on his fingertips and looked at me again.  Those eyes of his had gone dark, hot.  He slipped a hand against the side of my face and leaned forward, his thumb brushing my cheek, and found rose balm all over my mouth, and in long and quiet sucks, a few where the tip of his tongue grazed mine, he kissed it all off.  "You are," he said, "a delight."  "Thank you," I answered, and by then I wanted the sofa, anything, wherever. "For me," he murmured, though there was no question in it.

Try to be subtle when you feel fucking gorgeous.  I failed, dear volume, I couldn't stand it any longer.  "Come to bed and enjoy me now," I told him (all metaphors colliding and collecting near the groin by then), while he, in turn, absorbed the idea that I meant 'in there, in that cot of a sleeping arrangement'.  I held his arm and I let him take me to my own bed, half the size of his own but tall and forcing interesting solutions, for that.  I gratuitously explained that fact between kisses and bites from him.  Apparently I was convincing (or finished at least one sentence) because by the time I had a hand in his trousers he was pushing me onto my back.  "The pin, dear."  "Yes, of course."  He pulled it off with perfect calm, set it aside, took Auntie's gorgeous Hermes scarf out of my shirt (thank you, kitty, I believe you are partial to it), quartered it on its creases, and then tore into my throat again with his lips with a smile, I could feel it.  And I started to laugh at the thought I'd hardly just put it all on for him.  He took that as encouragement, which it was. "You feel brilliant, more of that," I said, "And of course this was all for you. Let me kiss you there, take them down."  I went for his trouser flies.  He shook his head and whispered, "Not yet."  Of course my pen would demand a new cartridge now.

The difference between you and me, pen, is timing.  I was able to carry on when it counted.  He liked what I did.  Perhaps I was worried over nothing.  We've both had women, and you can't exactly mistake me for one.  I explained that I don't plan to do it often and he mumbled something against my neck that sounded to me like "pretty" but I believe it was "pity."  And then he moved down and started kissing my stomach.  All around my tattoo, as well. Glorious torture.  Before he brushed his mouth over my cockhead through my pants, I thought I would faint, it was so emotional I had to close my eyes.  It's been so, so long.  Since anyone.  Of course I had to wreck everything by almost crying my silly head off.  It meant so much to me that he even did that much.  I'm writing like an idiot, pen do something about it.  

Does he know I am fascinated by Japanese line art?  Perhaps I have mentioned it to him?  And the patience and elegance in their traditional behaviours?  Is there a western concept similar to *that* one, though?  Amanuensis?  It doesn't entirely fit.  One thing I do know:  being 'his' is not in opposition with being myself, at least not so far, and the restrictions are lined with privileges.  It is a matter of humility, not humiliation, and if he concedes to letting me near his many battles, yes, I can be that.

He liked the crepes, particularly vanilla sauce from his fingertips, &c.  Yes, sucking them, and him, as much as he could bear.  He felt cared for.  I can do that much. 


	52. David

_16 May_

 

Randall yesterday, essentially eight hours, never boring.  Intercultural cues.  He is pleased.  This pen weighs too much.

I spoke to S briefly, we can't meet because I'm going to E tomorrow.  He and J are signing the purchase agreement with the Slovak family on the Eastbourne place (18th).  He intends to start packing that afternoon, he said.  No acknowledgement of fact that committee / not keen.  OMG.  I don't know what he's said to M.

I must get hold of things.  Tomorrow is big.  And I will have a task to do, there, aside from observing the proceedings at some meetings in M's place.  I don't know what it is, yet.  Waiting for a file.

Three suits.  Separate rooms. 

Lexie, stop it, he cares for you, stop it.

Someone from St. Petersburg who had come for an émigré author's 70th birthday party here in London decided to talk but wanted M personally.  For some reason it scared me but mainly I am stressed over a number of things at once and should really stop it.  I'm getting repetitive.  Hell.

I regret that I had problems focusing at first this morning and I finally told Randall in a single run-on sentence about what happened three years ago today.  He gave me some pointers on breathing which are counter-intuitive but helpful in getting the body under control so the mind can follow suit.  Avoid repetitive thoughts, break all pattern-thoughts quickly.  Turn and make a remark, no matter how artificial, to ground one's self, for instance to the help.  Drink more water than normal.  Body language: hold hands loosely one on the other, at the waist, not behind, not in pockets, not clasped like a footballer dreading a bollock-bursting blow to the groin.  Field, in steps.  Breathe out forcefully, do not set off hyperventilation.  I always needed it the other way.   

We'd planned to have tea together after Randall left but I told M that honestly, I'd nothing to say.  He did not like the sound of that.

Was in church.  The priest misread my brother in the list of intentions as Daniel Nussbaum and I broke down on the spot.  I was even thinking -- B would get that much right.  B is still behind bars, trial to begin soon, evidence collected.  Unspeakable.  All of it.  I shouldn't be resentful, it's my fault.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  It was me.  It was all me.  My fault.  Dear, dear David.

18:20     M came by on his way home to ask after me and check if I'd packed meds, clothes etcetera for Edinburgh.  He'd had a difficult day.  There's no point in writing why when nobody should know of it, particularly this ball of nerves and snot.  We listened to each other a bit.  He wanted me to come home with him but I didn't and he didn't insist, though he was worried & asked if I'd want him to stay or if I wanted a nurse.  I wish I'd just told him that I wanted him to stay -- but cannot bear to talk, and is that fine.

Dear book, you see, I haven't ever written this down or told a soul.  Consider yourself very unlucky that I cannot hold this in. 

1)  David wanted to be cremated, and had alluded to wanting to be buried near Mum if-ever and I followed what I construed to be his wishes, though I wanted to make a proper grave for him.  He'd no will, because I had one and he considered it sth for the sickly.  

2)  Monica, David's girl at the end, took his ashes.  I was in hospital and unable to pick them up and made the mistake of authorising her to get them.  She was to keep the urn for me, only two days.  Two.  Days. 

3)  She did some sort of personal ceremony & dumped them.  Somewhere.  One of the most barbaric acts.  And I struggle to forgive her and fail, and fail, and fail.  She apologised that she'd been irrational, she'd had a personal crisis she wouldn't explain.  And yet she won't tell me where except that it was pretty there, to stop asking, that she'll not tell me.  Last week, she said it would be the last time we'd ever be talking about the subject because she's engaged and would rather bury that in the past where it damned well belonged.  Essentially told me to bugger off. 

4)  Due to my confusion over how to bury my brother I consulted a priest, namely I became acquainted with B.  He & I developed that gradual whatever-that-was:  the 'basis' should have warned me off but I was so depressed.  And let that develop.  Toxic.  Foolish!  That's how it started, though.

5)  I was the last person David ever spoke to.  I swore at him and shouted at him on the phone because he was being difficult.  That was his last impression of me, of family, of life.  You see, that is what I am capable of, book.  There's more.  Sometimes I even imagine myself torturing the location out of Monica.  Psychologically bending her with facts and questions, taking her apart to where she is never the same again.  Then again, what would it explain except that I really am awful.  There we are.

21:47  I'm waiting for M to pick me up.  I tried.  He said no bother at all.

 

_17 May_

 

We've just got to the hotel and I have two hours to myself, now.

Last night, I forced myself not to apologise.  It would have been the one thing he'd have taken exception to.  See, book.  You cannot apologise, Randall has told me, for things other people want to do for you, or for what they feel for you.  Empathy should be clear and unapologetic where acquaintances are concerned.  Well.  I didn't apologise for needing him.  That was very hard because at first I felt like I was imposing, though it was soon clear that I was not:  M was very willing to come, and said he'd expected it earlier on and was not sleeping anyhow, due to the reading he has.  He petted me while he irritably turned pages every three or four seconds and I periodically gathered them up, as I wasn't useful for discussion and he wasn't talking.

Later on I was feeling pathetic and I said, "Tell me you don't feel 'forced to keep me', I can't stand it."  He shook his head.  "No.  I equated you unfairly that day with those who seek personal advantages, generally those who don't know the definition thereof.  Well.  There have been occasional attempts at winning my favour, for a vote, for a word, a recommendation, a promotion or some such matter.  But in spite of my brother's valiant efforts to ward you off --"  "Don't.  He is ill, the career he enjoyed is non-existent, his life in London is going into boxes.  Not to mention the other pressures of married life, and parading before your and your committee's devices.  I daresay I don't blame him for losing control of his tongue." I have mixed feelings, here, and he knew it.  "Mm."  He was about to hold forth on that but changed his mind and kissed my head.  And that was the end of it. 

Later on, I was curled up between his legs, and he marked up some other reports, talking me through some sort of aviation acquisition schedule pertaining to non-espionage flight of something or other.  When I had nothing to wrap up in for the night (not thinking) he gave me a soft robe, and he petted me like a cat and told me to ignore everything he said, and proceeded through two models of policy-drafting over numerous administrations according to some or another set of taxation interests in such and such commodities/imports, literally lulling me.  Try to stay awake when you're warm, your man is stroking your head and shoulders for as long as you can keep your skin on.  He has so much to give and has stifled it for years -- my theory -- and sometimes it feels random but it really isn't.  It is all him.  There is no point in stating the reason for such and such number of mad kisses without preface or that silence or that need to stare closely or...pet me and talk, to have someone. Loneliness leaves marks.  Spaces and silences and reserve in a soul that emerge alongside the other things.  He read to me from "The Glass Bead Game" and we discussed the nature of that game & human imagination until I must have tired him because he suddenly wanted to silence me with kisses instead, which was fine.  It felt fantastic there against his chest.  Dark ginger hair, his nipples.  Mm.  So I kissed them.  And looked for freckles on his shoulder, in the dark, with my tongue.  Though neither of us could really go further. 

("Must there be dialogue, to interact with the Game?  Consider, Alexander.  Can there not be meaningful interaction between Man and Game?")


	53. Summit, peak

_18 May_

 

S & J signing the notary agreement today. Fingers crossed for them. Kitty:  "Defence and deterrence postures, beyond re-coordinating Special Forces manoeuvres and airlift command structures, shall commence co-laterally in re-training -- sky visibility, patrolling, and so forth."  His interlocutor, the author of the report M was reading the night before last:  "Visibility?"  Kitty:  "Pro-escalative responses to detected intent."  Interlocutor, former chief of aerial I-cannot-say-what in NATO, head of X committee:  "Detected intent?"  Kitty:  "Intent is an extraneous category, beta sixteen is currently orange.  The content of the re-training in the hands of the Germans, precisely when French overtures have made renegotiation of four -- mark that -- four linkage packages in K-4 unthinkable, without equitable burden shifts!"  There is some sort of reshuffling in air patrol and redrawing of policies I wish I understood -- enough to know if he is all right, because he left exasperated, not that the aviation expert even saw that much. 

They all talk of these abstractions, when on the ground, people could be slaughtered this very night, someone shot dead in their bed and incinerated to hide all evidence -- their home gutted, their fields burnt & poisoned.  For their ethnicity & for returning after seventy years to their own family lands only to be driven out again.  Nobody even writes of it. 

In other events:  I had the privilege of speaking to the former President of the Human Rights Council to the United Nations.  A self-declared fan of my drawing.  I could hardly believe my silly ears when he told me.  Moreover, he claimed (in the context of a survey of opinions which was anything but casual) that the Holy Father, the POPE himself, has mentioned my drawing, as an attempt to reconnect to values through simple teachings at the risk of deadly opposition by extremists and liberals alike &c so I responded by nearly vomiting in the nearest gent's just afterward.  I had been better.  Of course I am honoured but I need to take this all in. 

So M has just sent a card with one of the Anthonies who'd been at the door, downstairs.  Of course, kitty cannot leave like I did, rushing off like a fucking orchid.  They don't rush off, either, do they.  Never mind. 

Further to that: I wrote back 5 words as he asked.  The first thing that came to mind was "I'm sorry, dearest ginger kitty" so I scribbled that down & stuffed his card back in the envelope, gave it to A, and went for a long shower.  I meant -- for leaving in that manner. Instead I disturbed M even more, poor dear, I wasn't thinking.  When I came out from under the water I could hear the room door opening so I locked the bathroom, picked up a straight razor (yes, I would if I had to) and asked who was there.  The same guard identified, approached the door & asked if I am well. Well I was, but wet. He insisted I show myself so I dressed and emerged with a soaked shirt collar and damp arse, in a cloud of steam, with a straight razor in my fist.  We were quite a pair. He had a sharp, brassy tool in his hand that he closed his fingers over when I tried to get a look at it. "All is well," I said.  He nodded once & gave me another envelope.  M had written:  "Your significance cannot be stated."  When A asked me to confirm receipt of the card I wrote back, "Dressing, will be on time."  True, and as uninspired as the near-incident with the hot hair dryer.  Ech.

A will be back in eight minutes. M needs me & I write such rubbish, even now. A crisis over little words while at a summit!  Eustace would be ashamed, Lexie.  Alex.  Alexander.  "The scenario: you are at a conference involving heads of state, military experts and dignitaries from all over Europe, with special guests from the Middle East and the Americas. There is an official dinner in half an hour. Seating has just begun. Now, while pretending you hardly know a man you adore more than life, the same one you have put through 2 hours of discomfort due mainly to your poor choices of words, you will take dinner among said personages. Given your sick gut and dietary restrictions you will not eat much but the fact must be concealed with grace. When asked for an opinion, deflect in accordance with a common policy line and/or refer to interlocutor's companion's earlier remarks. Prepare your main arguments in German or Latin, your choice -- you have well under half an hour, Lexie." Dear old man. 

23:15     Honestly, there was not much I could eat so it was a relief that sb brought in a portion that had been steamed without salt.  M was seated with two acquaintances of his from a former administration and I pitched my behaviour according to a person seated next to one of them, who was not involved in the conversation directly but was forced to ask for shared condiments, etcetera.  I left first.

Kitty and I had some time in his room & I told him I hadn't intended to disturb him earlier on and that we might consider a signal for "must get the hell out of here". We agreed to think something up.  I suggested a second one for "you've no idea how sexy you are when you tell Europe's military leaders, &c" and he finally smiled a bit.  "Are we all right?" I asked. "Yes, of course," he answered, though that didn't seem entirely true. 

There was a mirror mounted to the wall over a low desktop, approximating a toilette table, and when I sat down and pulled off my tie and unbuttoned my shirt at the neck and a bit more than need be, my heart was already clicking like a bloody bomb.  I pulled the rose balm out of my jacket pocket and put it on. "I thought so," he remarked, and looked away. I'd enjoyed it all afternoon, even if he hadn't been closer than three feet from me the entire day.  No visible difference whatsoever but the scent and texture:  a bit like silk pants nobody can see.  "I can’t hide much from you, can I, no discovery from your side, kitty,” I answered.  "Indeed."  He clenched his teeth and pushed at his collar to remove his own tie.  I stayed at the mirror & had a chance to assess the fact that aside from the grey in my hair, I don't quite look my age.  When rested.  Good timing, though, let us say.  Suddenly he added, “You spare me tedium.  Constantly.”  “Oh,  that’s very nice of you to say, dear.  Especially after a dinner like that one.”  “Witheringly dull. Taken as a whole, examining the event, Alexander --"  He had been unbuttoning his waistcoat and turned away to continue on that.  "What are your thoughts? Should I have stayed on longer, darling?"  "They didn’t deserve a moment more of your patience,” he remarked, staring at me and then in front of himself as he continued the war against his own fingers.  "Kitty," I said, and he sort of stopped.  “Let me, I can't watch this,” I told him & stood up to help him, the word 'patience' hanging there, making things rather charged, it's hard to describe.  “You know what?” I asked, and he leaned in almost too close for what I was trying to do.  And Lord, how I regretted not having brought anything more to wear for him, he'd have loved it.  "Yes?"  "They’d no idea at all what you were actually there to see, did they, no." "Nnno."  "And you treated them to such an interesting analogy at the end.  We'll need another signal."  "For?"  "I wanted to ask to leave with you for a kiss, somewhere quiet.  But then I changed my mind.”  “Over that reference to the Letters to Corinthians, no doubt --”  “Let me finish, please.  I thought of the way you described the disintegration of the Pavlova-Sugars, that one time.  Remember?"  "Of course."  "I saw several on the tabletop, did you?  And just then I wanted you to hold your tongue against mine, the way you do when you are about to speak but change your mind and kiss me, more.  Those moments with you.  You know which sort, dissolving."  "Yes."  (Dying.  I wanted him so much.)  "Mm?  I thought I should go and then I realised I didn't want to let you out of my sight, after all.  You're a handsome one, you know, I'd not want to leave you. Again. I was lonely earlier on." (He looked so hungry, too -- I needed his mouth on me, but in fact he wanted mine.  And couldn't say it.)  "No," he said, and seemed to realise as he said it that it was...*imprecise*.  Of all travesties.  He blinked and furrowed his brows.  "Have you taken everything?" he asked.  "You wanted to ask something else.  I know your methods, darling, at least some of them."  "That you do," he said, something very hot appearing in his eyes (and then in my hand, too -- why waste time?), "and I know some of yours, as well."  OMG, I took him to the bed and after many kisses and some intervals of discussion I sucked him off, he was so wet, Lord he was fantastic.  And when he came.  He is so manly.  I could not keep my hands off myself.  He was flattered.  The way he licked my neck and jerked me, so good. 

Book, don't.  That blankness in response, honestly.  You know precisely what I mean, or should I tell you?  He was able to let go, I was so happy for him.  I am exhausted & I still have to read one report for tomorrow.  I've got a meeting.  Cultural exchange.  Mm, kitty.  I'd have gladly gone for another round, you were brilliant.


	54. A compelling inner life

_19 May_

 

This morning I was meeting with four participants in a project which involved performing & visual arts exchanges among...yes, the Balkan countries -- an area of interest to kitty, let it be said (all things Balkan-state-related, as I discovered in Biarritz.  He's written half of a monograph on trade agreements in the 70s -- apparently unique in the Bloc & he can't be bothered to 'flesh it out').  A conflict had arisen over proportions of items, the curator chosen, a contested figure.  There was also one financial question.  I cannot say the meeting was as productive as I'd hoped (process! must remember). We did hold levels of animosity and resentment down & keep to the subject at hand.  In fact everyone wants to share the performers who have remained in the countries (concerns over emigration issues).  There is a vibrant young generation of modern ballet dancers, for instance, who have common roots in the 80s school of ballet training, influenced by St. Petersburg (!) but have turned to folkloric and historical interpretations.  They were keen to talk about the folk aspects in the music. Anything to steer them from religion and the war, anything. I have to write a report later on for kitty to pass on.  In a word, I could do this.  (Oh, Randall would slap his knee and remove his glasses to clean them.)  I *will* do this.  One of the participants had brought their own version of baklava.  I shouldn't have but it was delightful -- now I am paying for it.  Well. 

Despite the wolves in my gut I went out to have cream tea and soup/savoury scones (wonderful!  will tell S: ground walnuts, sun-dried tomatoes, blades of rosemary, olive slices, smeared with curd cheese that had fresh basil chopped in it, to die for -- potential breakfast of dreams) with Sophie at a place she likes in the older part of Edinburgh, very charming.  I regret not taking a few photos of the street.  The guard I had was two tables away from us & even more discreet than the Anthonies in London & Sophie did not notice him.  Such a pleasure to talk, even if things have changed enough that we cannot return to a certain rapport we once had.  "You look gooooood!  Colour in your cheeks, for once," she told me, after sharing some snaps of her man on her phone.  I said (looking for a way to introduce the subject of M), "I have some help with that."  "Yeah, I can hear, you sound like you swallowed a watch.  Good you're okay, though.  We need to find you someone!"  "Well, actually I'm seeing someone," I told her.  The disbelief was brief and then, "Oh my God! Fantastic! Didn't I tell you online dating was the way? Oh, honey, I'm so happy for you!"  (Me, grinning.)  "Thanks."  "Have you got any photos, though?  Show me!  What's he like?  Tell, tell..."  "I haven't got any, no."  "What!"  "He's lovely."  (True!  No need to qualify that, Lexie.)  "Younger this time?"  "Older, in fact."  "You always went for the daddies."  "Hahh...."  "If he's your type he's either a double-O agent or snaps photos of human suffering."  (Sort of. But he doesn't actually own the satellites....)  I said, "Well, he...occupies a minor position in the government."  "Well, I'm sure he's a sweetie, like you."  "Yeah. Sweet Scorpios, you know."  "You'll shag each other to death or spend the rest of your lives quietly trying to out-love the other."  (I wish for nothing more, honestly.)  "Anyway, what's it like to live here?  Missing London?"  I wish I could have told her about how he is impossibly bright and elegant and dear, that he's the brother of *that* brunet at the Swan's Son *that* day last June.  But I could not, and there was a new distance to things. 

You must be brave for us, book.  I have so much to say & about the very things I should not speak of. And it is only getting more and more imperative that I do so, for my own sanity. Or that a delusion, right there?

You will believe me when I say I narrowly saved a waistcoat from ruin.  Yes.  And M is unable to say the word "ruin" without grinning to himself.  At the Glen Burns he was also smiling when he said I would be his ruin, there under the stairs. 

I asked M why there were meetings on cultural exchanges occurring alongside a summit of this sort -- cost (delegations sent less often) and the fact that many programs are extensions of offset or reparations. And in smaller, less affluent countries, the same decision-making bodies are involved in both.  "Affluence leads to greater divisions between culture and self-preservation," kitty remarked. That's thought-provoking, is it not.  

 

_20 May_

 

Still thinking about M. His room, last evening, not long.  Yes, book.  I've a mood to explain that my man has a compelling inner life. 

Like you, my dear book, I was convinced for a time that he does not think that way (or of me 'that way').  I was impatient.  As it happens, a naturally over-associative mind, of such over-activity as I cannot entirely understand, is all the more prone, to the point of sprawling in fantasy. However, he cannot easily hand himself over, nor is he able to tolerate the sound of himself speaking impulsively. It unnerves him, and cycles right into his need for order, logic, systemic elegance -- parity. He adores the notion of 'consonance', wherever:  in beauty, sound, structure, ideas.  He applies discipline (and has for years), to many areas of his life, down to diet & sleep.  Penmanship.  Grooming.  I do, too, but let's be honest, it mainly pertains to penance, or food: diet, regularity of eating, ingredients, settings, for reasons. The rest can go to hell, and does. He has an artistic side, like S, perhaps from the mother, which he will not allow to rule his perceptions.  Much. Not least, he's got an erotic imagination, book, that he rarely lets fly.  In Arbon, he wanted me to show him what I would want, which led to a long discussion & even longer scene over the particulars of blow-jobs. I should not laugh, he was genuinely worried about me. In his over-thinking he was still surprised by the "implications", later on, that reciprocation takes many forms, and should.  That I don't mind "attempts" when it means learning how best to love each other. What else should we do in this life? 

In referring to me as a delight (one of the dearest things ever) he has made me re-think a number of things about how I have been perceived by blokes. This needs more explication. Not now, however. 

Last night: M had no substantive objections whatsoever when he saw I wanted to go down on him.  A first, that he voiced no concerns.  He can raise dozens of them, every imaginable complication to having an 8-inch prick (yes) sliding against one's palate (while overlooking the fact I want it there for as long as I can draw it out): the angle, depth, speed, the weight I would have to put on my arms and the sternum at a given time on a particular surface, if I can breathe freely, "mortification" at everything from consistency to flavour to amount to all aspects of hygiene you can worry over, to underclothes, to the bed itself, its springs, height, softness, the bedding, the pillows, the temperature of the room, the light, its scents; then there are my thoughts, experiences & mood, the urgency in my own state, whether I expect such and such -- I've hardly scratched the surface.  Should *I* get a single scratch, Gracious Mother, the room would splinter. 

And yet this time, all I saw was a helpless grin and a hand passed over his eyes and mouth, trying to hide it. 

He needs to as much as I do, I can feel it.  He might have my thighs, at the least, but we are usually a bit too eager for the particulars.  Another day, perhaps at my place.  When he is calmer and we can talk more.  He likes that first.  Not that I mind, the more the better, really.  Perhaps I have managed to explain (!) that at times he is unsettled in bed, though it is so much nicer than before, when I had the impression he was trying to overwrite something (someone, let us be honest) else.  As I have been, too.  Because I am. 

At this age most of us are overwriting layers of experiences, many we still feel the contours of, which affect the purity of any new line we try to put down.  Even so, I really might have brought sth.  This is the last time I travel without more of my things.  (Things, beautiful volume.  We don't go through customs, nobody will see at the airports.)  Hm.  Then again, while a large bottle of GunOil H20 may work on my S's imagination, I have a feeling this brother would more likely jab his fountain pen into it on sight. 

I shouldn't make fun.  I do not like those rituals either.  Once again, I am getting well ahead of myself.  No context for this.

I miss him right now, if that isn't clear.  So handsome and focused, sparking with energy, while speaking to someone on regulatory frameworks for international shipments of some sort of bio-capable (?) warhead or another.  In German, so I could understand the gist, this time.  He was dressed like midnight itself, his hand rested (not at rest) on the handle of his umbrella & standing at the base of an enormous stairwell. As I gazed over at him, headlights from a vehicle outdoors flashed a burst of colour through a pane of painted plate glass nearby, which hit the wall and the shoulder of his interlocutor -- M blinked, glanced abstractedly at me as if he were gathering his thoughts.  I looked away:  yes, kitty, I saw it, we were there for a moment, were we not, my dearest.  The meetings.  The dialogues.  This world.  The people who stumble through, as they make to rule it.  Oh, kitty.  I will delight you, as I can.  As you delight me.  Our first kisses, when we are alone together again, will be just as thrilling as the ones beneath a secret staircase, far from here, of that I am certain.


	55. Black humour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:52, 53

_22\. May_

 

Particulars another time.  I am in their Mum's bed.  Arrhythmia & should not be writing things, at all.  Kitty is downstairs, speaking to the nurse and will be back up here soon, thankfully.  I'd wanted to give him a nice evening.  This started just after dinner. 

I asked him, you know.  Book, I needn't have mentioned that ring, again -- even J looked at it and tried to give his condolences to M for the lady's death as we left Baker Street.  But it is not for the lady.  He said it was sth like the caput mortuum tattooed on my abdomen and I suggested we might remove them someday.   He didn't answer.  Never mind. I wanted to tell him more but I could not do it when there were so many shadows.  He is on the stairs, now.

 

_23\. May_

 

I wasn't able to write yesterday, for reasons I will try to detail without setting off any more nerves. 

In the morning, I'd planned to see M but there was an emergency concerning trade and he was asked somewhere for an opinion, which he generally does not give in such conditions but apparently it was urgent enough that he agreed to do so.  And I took the car to Jermyn Street for the jacket.  Frederick (S's tailor, who I daresay will be mine as well; Carter is M's, I'm silly that way), brought out my grey herringbone -- gorgeous thick weave -- and then presented me with the blackest-black of merino wool suits, lined in an almost periwinkle blue, cut close like S wears, racy even, for me, and told me that my friend had ordered it for me when we'd been there together.  I was touched.  Really, it was so surprising.  (That is the only word for it, even now.  The effort & expense he went to, regardless of his connection to F.)  My reaction was a bit much but I was tired.  I think it worried F and he brought over a chair for me.  "Geht es Ihnen gut? Sie haben dazu nichts gesagt, aber ich weiß, daß es in Ihrem Herzen schlägt, ach." I don't go in for black suits -- burials.  And Lena's & my wedding which never was.  But obviously a suit from that man is a work of art, I have often (ahem) admired how he dresses S & when I tried on this one (a single button -- odd) I felt a bit dangerous.  And the Brazilian can drape an arse, in a word.  Of course I took it -- we travel, there are many meetings -- even this morning, I wore it, in fact.  Ironic but it is only clothing. I have several other events coming up, &c.  Anyhow, I spoke to F. about a pair of trousers for myself, with buttons up the sides of the calves, fitted, in an Edwardian style, in dark brown and grey plaid that could be paired with several of my jackets.  Fabulous, OMG, he understood precisely what I meant (he'd just returned from working on period costumes and had some lovely ideas).  With the pin-tucked shirt, and the cashmere wrap-front sweater I always save for heaven knows what, oh yes, that special occasion:  my life.

I can say that today.  Yesterday I was feeling low enough that I had some foolish thoughts, indeed.  Fleeting ones, but very destructive.  That cannot happen.  None of this should have, from start to finish. Despite what has been stated by S, there are no valid reasons to compare my experiences with those of others M has cared for, slept with or otherwise involved himself with, nor concern myself with what happened, that they found they could not stay by him anymore. Thus I begin from the end.

Shall we get through this:  I texted S to thank him & he wrote that the suit is "something for Lisbon" and I wrote I wasn't going, and he answered "not yet".  I might have left it alone.  Since he and M have been in touch more often, now, re. Eastbourne I'd assumed it was another destination on M's (our?) upcoming agenda.  I went for some shopping (sweets for kitty & a tube of sth naughty) and when R received a call from M to take him home from the Diogenes, I stayed along to surprise him (he knew I was there, of course, but I'd wanted to kiss him & cheer him first thing -- he's been under so much strain and every moment he is able to smile, matters).  When he got in I needed to move the clothes aside, so I showed him the jacket from the suit I'd got from his brother.  And asked when we'd be going to Lisbon, that S had mentioned it.  M looked murderous, it scared me to death.  Really, book, he was in a rage but closed up, which is the worst of all because there is no way to get through.  And when I tried to ask what was wrong he shouted, "*Silence!*"  That startled Rodney, who braked.  M leaned forward and demanded we go to Baker Street, not far by then.  He wouldn't look at me.  I elected to stay silent.  Hell.  I tried to think of any connection I could between Portugal and family, suits, tailors, anything.  I could only recall one story from the World War of sweets, concerning Lisbon.  But this was about another war, as it happened, and I'd not have guessed. 

When we parked near S's & J's front door M told me to wait for J.  I said I would.  He reached over and brushed my cheek with his hand.  "Kitty, do take care," I said, and he left the car.  With the umbrella.  Well.  J came along several very long minutes later, in a marching stride up the pavement, so I popped out & asked him to join me.  He seemed surprised to see the car, hungry for sure, and he wanted to cut things short and go up.  But I was to keep him, so we chatted about my drawing in Der Spiegel, his stories, art at large, and when he wanted to get out I told him something was wrong -- and explained that S had ordered a suit for me, and he looked put out, understandably.  I asked him if he knew what the Lisbon situation referred to & he said he didn't.

J & I went upstairs together and walked loudly so they'd have a chance to compose themselves.  The room was stuffy and the air was sour from some sort of chemicals & cooking smells, steam, their anger.  M had taken off his jacket & S was losing the upper third of his shirt, sweating, as he rarely does, but it was humid, as I already wrote, focus Lexie.  He was manic, shaking his head to himself and M was taut, face agent-like, livid but cold.  I asked if they'd resolved the issue & S said to M, "Resolve it!"  J started to ask what was going on and stood at their sides like he expected to intervene physically, which I could not rule out, either.  I'd not seen M like that (even at the Equinox party, though that was very different set of circumstances).  I'd rather not, ever again.  I stood closer to the sofa, nearer J and M.  S said the "game" was up & I asked which game.  S said, a "pathetic game" that hadn't worked.  M said, in a very calm voice that still disturbs me, that the black suit from S had been an allusion to "funerary arrangements, of the former minister and diplomat Feliciana Leonor Vargas De Andrada", a lady who'd been killed in Lisbon under the wheels of a street car.  He'd buried her, he said, in a blue-lined coffin "in reference to her rare eye colour”.  She'd not had any family left, like whom in that room!  I was so disgusted.  He finally turned his eyes away from S, to me, and said that S has "concerns" & explained, "he wishes to warn you, in this fashion, that our relationship may end in tragedy.”  Thus all of this has come further to S's warnings about M's former relationships, or at least that one.  That M is using me for unknown purposes or whatever the hell S has convinced himself of.  I could not believe my ears.  J was so angry, too, it was awful to watch him wind up like that.  He stepped toward me and said to S, through his teeth (he can be terrifying too, and S was listening even if he was pretending not to), "His brother died in the street, have some respect!"  Actually, that connection occurred to J even faster than it surfaced in my head.  I was trying to fathom why in all that is sacred S had chosen to poke at M using the death of a woman (because I am not one??? neither are you, S, recall) & the symbolism of her funeral arrangements so suggestively, as though I were marked for death, next!  Of those in that room, perhaps I am, we don't know what will come.  We don't.  But what can we do?  Refuse to move forward?  Refuse to love, and hide from whatever life we have left?  Why not spend it delighting someone who should smile, who struggles, who is as worthy of love as any of us, if not more?

I told S that he'd effectively hurt M & upset J, but for what end, when we all love him?  What had it all been for?  How could he hurt his own family?  I told him I would not accept his behaviour any longer.  I didn't dare mention what I thought, personally.  In fact, it doesn't matter.  It was supposed to 'inform' M that his 'actions' had not gone unseen.  The irony is, they have gone entirely unseen!  Can S really not believe what he sees in front of him?  Is this a matter of not wanting M to have anyone?  Or is it about me, personally?  I have to wonder, the way he was warned me off, tried to pair me -- even with his tailor?  Even after his own wedding, displays of jealousy?  J understood exactly what was going on, without having had the benefit/misfortune of hearing what S had said a couple weeks ago re. my 'healer' complex & being a host body to a destructive manipulator -- to which I said I'd seen it.  

Perhaps that is why I 'deserved' such a dramatic & expensive slap-down?  But by then S had already ordered the suit, so perhaps that is when he decided to add "Lisbon" and lined it in blue, to hurt M, and me?  Instead of wishing us well, as I have done for him? Would that have been so costly?

I am beyond frustrated right now. I'd imagined they'd come to more of an accord, given time.  It has never felt further from resolution. Add to all of this the surveillance on the new house. It is so complicated.

Anyhow, I took leave.  S wouldn't respond.  J saw us out.  He was so angry he was choking, his voice was cracking.  I felt for him -- he was the one who had to go back upstairs (for what M remarked laconically later on would be a righteous weighing up, I've no doubt it was horrible).  J said to M, "Figure out a way to make this stop", because he can't cope.  (I cannot either.  I am about to lose my friend and he cannot be lost, he simply cannot.  We must repair this carefully and find a way.  At the moment I do not yet see how.  But I am so grateful to J for standing up & deciding he will not tolerate what S has done.)  In the car I was crying like an animal.  M apologized for his roughness earlier on & fastened himself in next to me & held me until we got to Great Peter Street.  He asked R to stand by but I couldn't get my things together.  We tried to talk for a bit.  And I told him what I really think, given the few facts I have about his past relationships (mostly what remains of them in his anxious behaviours) that I do not believe he was responsible for their deaths.  That if they lost their way, it was because they were troubled.  That I cannot imagine anyone wanting to leave him behind.  Because who could!  Who! 

So the crux.  He told me something about David's accident I cannot believe but want to, more than anything -- for reasons, some very selfish.  He said he would give me all the evidence he has, very soon, for his claim that I was not the last person my brother spoke to & I want to believe him, so badly, it is splitting me to pieces.  Lord, help me.


	56. What cameras see

_26\. May_

 

Dinner a stone's throw from my place -- that I'd never been before, honestly.  It was at the former V library.  Indian food.  They've kept the arched windows, and there were rows of colourful volumes in overhead balconies all around.  Quinoa and cabbage to start, brown rice.  Kitty talked about some issues over the drawing & an ecumenical statement which will hopefully calm some voices who did not appreciate putting the figure of a non-practising Muslim (Bahlul-Hafiz Djamilov!  He has a name, gentlemen) in a setting "intended to evoke the presence of Christ" -- the objections are devastating, particularly those from the American press (context!!!) & I don't even want to record them.  It is as though the Healer should be available to certain groups only:  and was that not the point!  That the healer is notoriously absent in Europe?!  The lack of goodwill?  The rot?  The dragging of feet over emigration, migration?  The lack of reflection on who metes out 'justice' and in whose/what interests?  That certain choices are perilous and prickly precisely because they are right?  M assures me that the threats and remarks will not reach me directly and should abate altogether, soon.   

I don't even want to know what threats M is talking about & he won't tell me much (health --) & perhaps I am a coward, that I remain hidden (deliberately or not) behind his influence & connections, which are also very well-hidden.  He even went as far as to say, when I called him a grey eminence, that I must choose a shade of pale for myself as well.  But as he was the one who handed over that drawing for publication, he has picked up the rest:  for instance, I have had all of one interview, for the sake of creating the one and only available statement to the press (I am "enigmatic").  I am still anonymous, to the right people.  Imagine:  my drawings at the Equinox party of the Royal Family have not been connected anywhere in print with this political satire.  Fortunately. 

I only cope by pretending it is not happening to me, personally & remembering -- product, not producer.  I am not the true object -- they've no idea who I am, it cannot entirely touch me.  Yet it does! 

Blasphemy, Gluttony, Sloth, Lust.  Those are the ones going up at the Tate.  The only drawings I've managed to finish in time to be considered.  It's the end of May and I have held a pen (in various capacities) since the seventh day after this surgery, and I cannot focus.  I am pathetic.  I believe I had forgotten what 'work' was -- unless we count the way I have accompanied M in the last two months in his own duties.  There is drawing to be done, though -- a series of little drawings for The Spectator, quite exciting.  I met an editor yesterday, Lynnette P.  Keener on my 12-button trousers than my portfolio which was equal parts troubling and amusing.  I've not been the object of overt female attentions in some time and I'd nearly forgotten (no I hadn't) the inimitably awkward nuances it entails, and while I don't want to sound cynical, it was a situation where a lady felt safe in her overtures precisely because she assumed I'd be unlikely to reciprocate.  Not a wise practice. 

No progress in my head regarding S.  I keep wondering if he will text, but he does not.  He has not contacted M, either, even though the issue of the surveillance + committee nego. are crawling along.

19:35     Ginger kitty called that he has the files (send over?) on my brother.  He cannot see me tonight and I told him to give them over tomorrow, because I will want to talk about them.  Evening over.

 

_27\. May_

 

M had pictures from two other cameras.  I asked how it is that the police hadn't used them. M sd., superfluous to the report, not needed. There had been an 'internal 2 yellow' (?) security alert three days before, meaning all public institutions (+ all hospitals too) were monitored additionally for a period of 17 days, &c -- the police made no use of additional evidence from cameras, only one (at traffic crossing, the accident had been ruled one-sided, David had run on a red light, not looking & experienced lorry driver Milt Hurdon had no chance to brake, it was unambiguously ruled David's "fault".)  1) Monica called just seconds after me (mine ended 21:16:52, hers logged on 21:17:06). 2) She spoke to him for only 32 seconds.  3) David listened in silence, there is a film of him standing without any comment -- more than bizarre, he never stopped muttering, but here, he was stock still, in shock. 4) He literally turned away afterwards and dashed out into the street, but it was not a suicidal move -- Monica had called from a nearby clinic and he ran her way, already too exhausted from double-shifts to think clearly, but who would.  5) Monica's movements, expenditures and medical records:  she'd just miscarried -- OMG, poor girl, it changes everything, does it not.  I cannot hope to put the meaning of that into any useful perspective.  And I don't know how to thank M for doing this.  I'd even imagined he might have made it up, but that is not what he does.  He errs on the side of painful truths, and may it always be so.  I admire him so much for that, for having the courage to present things as they are.  

He is very busy.  He asked if I want to speak to Randall.  I asked if Randall is a psychiatrist, and M confirmed that he is not.

"Kitty," I said, "if there were only words."  "In the main, there are too many.  No bother, Alexander, no bother, at all."

I have watched that fragment of my brother standing so many times today it's not okay. 

The counter in the corner, the seconds. 

The movement of switching off the phone.

That turn at the waist, shoulders.  He'd hardly begun to grieve.  How fragile is this life.  I told kitty:  you cannot leave things unresolved, there cannot be hate, please do something, it's in your hands, always, you must walk higher.  He wants to wait a few more days.

 

_29\. May_

I've not slept with kitty since the night before the incident over the suit.  Just saying.  M is in meetings over a draft of a security resolution regarding air travel.  Air space.  This is about the thrice-airborne alert but he cannot address it, only recommend/advise around the concept of what might be, not knowing its real character.  I don't envy that task.  Our conversations are often stilted, mostly he talks through points, and I am trying not to set off anything.  He does not want to be touched much, or distracted.  I do.

But yesterday:  regarding my photographs.  Erring/painful truths.  Sth came out in conversation. "Yes, I've seen all of them, we accessed them last July.  Mr. Parsons has his archives of scanned film rolls in cloud storage and the password to your photos is "Lexie 27 dash 10", your birthday, I'd hardly expected to get it on the first attempt, though that's not as facile as many of the passwords used in-house at the Pentagon."  I was stunned, imagine.  (Mr. Parsons!  The password!)  "You didn't tell me you'd seen all my portraits," I said (& reached my Carly) "really, and viewing them was crucial to vetting?"  "Uninteresting," he replied.  That got into my spinal column.  "Alexander.  The reflex of capture, so to speak, is uninteresting in the portraits."  "I was merely a friend of your brother's --"  "One of the plethora."  "Don't.  What could they have meant to you.  Taken by my lover, many years departed abroad? You could watch your brother and me, or listen to either of us.  Talk to us, whenever you wanted."  I suppose he had done.  Well. Finally he said, "I'd not acknowledged my interest for what it was."  "Do you have others, of me?"  "Yes."  "I have all of two of you, those taken by the registrar at the wedding.  Shall I collect others from the press?" I asked. "There are none in the press," he replied.  I thought of the make-up for photographs at the Equinox party, randomly.  And I growled.  I really did.  I can, you know, book.  "Decide for yourself as to their invasive character," he muttered, and the cold expression came up.  He got up, left the room, and then returned with three very thick files.  "Have it, they are divided by quarters," he said, passed it all to me, and sat back to read while I opened it.  Mostly of me, some with S, some from Vienna including J & me in front of the Leopold, at the Bahnhof, handing over my watch, J grimacing at me.  I flipped through them.  Surveillance, candid, nothing particularly interesting.  My clothes were lovely -- Gracious Mother, as though that mattered, I was so tired then, all the time. 

Gradually I got over my initial dismay and I asked him if he'd ever had a favourite.  He rolled his eyes and picked up a file, this time of satellite photos -- a borderland in Iran, I believe.  "As you pointed out, I was not the intended viewer, in those scenarios."  He pressed his lips together and sniffed.  "Kitty, it's not an accusation, I'm only curious."  "There is one, with the Viennese rail-lines behind you. They appear to snake out from behind your back. Your glasses are on after reading the schedule, eyes dilated and alert, out of breath, your hand over your heart, checking for your uncle's watch in your pocket only to remember you'd given it to John.  It's not among the others, it differed."  He brushed a hand over his forehead and swallowed whatever else he'd planned to say.  "Differed?  So you wanted to keep it. Kitty, that was last October."  "Yes." He swallowed and turned a page. "I'd no idea there was anyone," I said, "and you cared, you see, and here we are." He glanced up, still cautious. I got up & leaned over to give him a kiss, and a little tongue. He caught my lip in his and kissed me back.  Let us say I couldn't be quiet. He surprised me by dumping the file aside and pushing his tongue into my mouth and wrapping his arms around me tightly, pulling me onto his knees.  "Kitty that felt so good, I've missed this sort," I said. "Tomorrow night," he said.  "Be patient with me, a little longer."  "I might be naughty on my own, at home." "Yes." I started to laugh, and finally I got him to smile a little. 

("Never again for any camera," he told me that night, when he broke in.  Well, he was in a mood.)


	57. Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2:54

_30\. May_

 

There was one thing that was funny yesterday -- to lighten things after the talk about the surveillance and the archives of Carly's photographs, I told kitty that we might choose something and exchange those things in bed. He said "Aha."  And he flicked open the Iran photos -- one of a dozen folders in a fan-shape near his hand.  Not the most propitious of beginnings but I was mistaken in deciding he wouldn't play along.  After all.  He read a little more, looked up and said, "When would this take place?"  "When you have something to contribute."  "Since you clearly have already.  If time is of the essence, I can give you two immediately," he said, expression illegible precisely where I’d have wanted hints.  He was lovely to look at, though.  I don't mention that often enough -- he is so handsome, I can't.  "Exactly two?" I asked.  "Hazy, no.  A matched pair.  Three discrete items.  And you'll have just the one, I see?"  (Hell.)  “Yes, kitty."  "The only one really needed in this entire scenario," he replied, “which is why I’ll be supplying 'trimmings'.” 

As usual, I've got ahead of myself. Last week, after having a rather depressing look through my bathroom cabinets which I shall not relate to metaphors on the passage of time, I tossed out some things and acknowledged that I am, book, wholly unprepared, materially, for penetrative sex. Therefore, I got a good lube several days ago, cash paid, Anthony sent off, &c. Nothing awful, from Finland of all places, faintly like their bitter licorice sweets, because kitty adores anise.  I don't know what I'm hoping for but I do know what I'm hoping for and for now I'm reduced to those things one is reduced to.  Note man's eloquence when it drops between his legs.  So.  I ought to cross this out.  That I don't write in one of those rub-out pens they've got now.

I will meet kitty at eight for dinner at his house, tonight. Is that any more neutral as an intro? Let's try again.

I'm nervous re. going to see S.  M says he'll be in because he is packing & spends hours arranging the move online and hardly leaves right now, and I've decided not to call ahead.  We need to discuss several layers of intimation, none comfortable in the least, & I have decided two things:  1) He must give me my house key back so that sexy times with my boyfriend do not collide with thoughts of his younger brother popping by to give me a carton of mare's milk or to snag a bread roll from my basket to nibble on.  One of the Anthonies would probably be there to stop him but I still think of it.  2) He must tell me if his actions are part of a greater need to withdraw from our friendship before he moves away.  I am not looking forward to asking but I am ready to hear an answer.  

Waiting for Rodney, now.  Dressed to the nines in a certain black suit, which ironically enough is becoming a favourite bit of armour.  Frederick's sewing, you know.  Worst, S will probably see I'm needing some.  (Wouldn't be the first time.)  Lexie, stop.

 

_31\. May_

 

Yesterday I talked to S for about two hours.  It was actually good.  He apologised.  I will say more about it another day -- we will see each other again on Friday & perhaps by then I will have a better grasp of how to write about him.  As it is, things are all right.  He has conceded, at least, that M cares for me & is not trying to trick me or lead me to my death.  Progress (facepalm) but with these two, every step matters.

When I left to go back home, kitty was in the car -- he'd finished earlier than expected (some submarines missing but not missing, a mix-up in signals and a general who literally wet himself over it -- mercy, I don't want to know).    Lord, he was hot & I told him I'd been thinking of Arbon and he said he had ideas for me, too & we decided we'd drop by my place so I could pick up the essentials & go home with him.  His kisses -- he had me pressed against his chest, an arm around my shoulder and he smelled of cedar and warmth, the grassy sort that suggests the folds near delicate points -- I wanted to lick him.  Tongue, of course, neck, the skin around his lower lip. I bit him a little.  Not terribly safe in the car (sewer covers and reflectors) but exhilarating to know that was only a greeting.  He was hardly able to crawl out of the car without someone seeing what I would be getting at.  He took a call and recited some numbers and several disconnected words.  "I would also like a word," I told him when he rang off.  He looked up at me.  "Choose well," he said, all government.  "'More'," I said.  He was keen, very.  And this time we had the carpet, near his hearth, where he has very recently removed the heavy table and settee and left two leather armchairs.  Easily kicked aside, as it happens.  I praised the arrangement and straddled him.  I did.  "How will it be in winter? Can it be just like this?" I asked -- something to that effect.  His expression:  Gracious Peter. 

I'd thought he would smile but I haven't seen him like that since he said, "Forewarned, forearmed!" on his settee, in nearly the same place, at the start, last month.  I suspect the very location is loaded for him.  Book, that he should be moved (frozen over, in kitty's case) that his lover thinks of being at his side, preferably straddling him at the hearth in a similar manner, three seasons ahead?  Infer. 

In that rather precarious pose of mine I leaned down (I can finally put all my weight on one arm that way, without much discomfort, for a good cause) and reminded him I was looking forward to many things in the meantime with him, to deflect some of whatever was agitating him so much, and kissed him.  He asked after a very long silence if I would go upstairs and get ready for dinner while he spoke to the cook & finished reading.    

After dinner he asked me to go upstairs first, again.  That there was something for me, &c. Was there. An acquaintance of his from a chamber of trade (Turkish embassy?) hand carried the most breathtaking thing to London ever, for me.  Two things, in fact, but I haven't seen the other yet (rose lokum).  And, this.  Should I say kimono?  More of a gown, very much as he'd described -- dark cobalt silk, quilted inside in arabesque patterns, embroidered in a riot of red and green.  I think I screamed.  Some sort of noise that I'm sure he heard from downstairs.  Instantly warmed by my body and the softest, most sensual feel on the skin, all over.  Lined in red, not lime.  I've got a few lovely things, but this.  Honestly.  A clear answer to the proverbial 'what I would take should the house be on fire' (now that I have the Villiers genealogy deposited elsewhere, I would certainly snatch this up).  Long to the ankle, wrapped to the side with a long self-tie at the hip, that is quilted underneath in green, as are the pockets, inside.  The sleeves are covered in a motif of branches -- blood-red trees of life growing up from the wrist and down from the shoulder, like a circulatory system with twisted organic patterns at the elbows, his own concept, as he'd described to me before.  Each arm slightly different, likely made by two artisans of equal skill.  The collar is high, warm, again, lined in red.  The front is unornamented, a starless heaven of dark blue -- just as well, given the sleeves.  However, the back is quilted inside in patterns & fully embroidered on the outside, in a large flowering tree filled with birds and a single flying serpent (-- kitty joked that that's him & I needn't ask for his photographs -- teasing me over that exorcism in the hospital, nasty man!) and it is all madly detailed, mostly in reds and greens, with bursts of yellow and turquoise, the trunk of which hides a placket.  OMG.  With twelve hidden buttons.  That open it from the floor, up to the middle of the back.  When I saw that I got, literally, book.  My pulse was all over the place.  I'd not even put it on for him.  Even now it is affecting me.  (S recently picked up a shirt from Frederick's, a gift from J, made of dark red, matte silk with an unusual weave, we might say a 'single-purpose' blouse with no buttons, and I'd wished someone would want to dress me up for bed like S's officer does, but this, I must say -- book, I can't -- this is not just for bed.  It is about being treasured, in life.  OMG, it's a masterpiece.  It should be in a museum of haute couture, absolutely, and I don't even want to imagine what he paid for it.  Nor who should ever see it, if anyone.)  I washed up for bed, did my eyes really nicely, not too dark -- and put that beautiful thing on.  I wanted to ask him to come upstairs so I tiptoed over to the staircase.  But I saw something else I still don't really know how to interpret.  M had settled in one of his armchairs by the hearth, and had an elbow propped on the armrest, his face in his left hand, his right clenched over the other armrest.  I was torn between interrupting that and letting him alone.  I decided I should not have seen it but nearly ruined my eyes.  Well.  That sounded unusual.  But so it was.  By the time he came upstairs we were both ourselves, shall we say, and he was beyond delighted.  And I felt much better, seeing that smile on him.  I was sitting on that bed, where I tend to sleep.  Like a tart, if we're honest.  "You'll see my knickers in this," I remarked.  "If you persist in wearing them," he answered, eyes glittering, and climbed onto me, all dressed, still, me half stripped to pants in that -- gown, shall we call it.  Work of art I still cannot believe.  OMG.  What a scene, though:  he was in that beautiful glen check suit and tie, on me, sprawled out like (a badly behaved Catholic draftsman).  M would say taikomochi.  That's what he sees in me even if I am not certain how much I can cheer him.

He got a bit further down and kissed my stomach, which had already started growling annoyingly in acknowledgement of dinner received and he managed to ignore it in favour of my cock, which he.  I can't.  I was gagging for every touch so honestly it was all fine even if it was -- oh hell, book, he was tormenting me by being arrhythmic about it, faster, slower, never quite hard enough.  Not entirely a hand job nor a blow-job & teasing me.  He knows precisely what he's doing.  Finally I told him, one or the other.  And he propped himself on one elbow, recall, still in his suit, and shook his head as though I were impossibly demanding, smiled and left me for a few minutes -- not long, thankfully.  When he reappeared, in pants, wickedly turned on, he asked me to his room.

It was easy to forget (temporarily, as the mind is washed of cares by floods of hormones) what I had seen downstairs.  (Which I cannot put aside so easily.  My interpretation, since I am on the subject and not likely to return to it in this entry -- loss, fear of loss.  I feel we have managed to overcome many anxieties over satisfying the other but there is always that cavity.  And when feelings are so enormous, they balance close to that gaping place, which they cannot fill, and should not.) He saw me in, shut the door and switched off the lights to where we had one small one, in a socket, mostly so I won't fall over furniture in the dark, which he imagines I might.  And I might.   

Dear pen, you are going to be patient with me.  I am gripping you this way because I am half-mad if not fully, thinking how heavy his bollocks were, they are madly large -- yet how supple that skin is, his auburn hair there, which is soft and yet the least orderly part of him.  Delicious skin.  That prick, made to be eaten down, warm pink, hot at tip and base, always forced to wait, and wait, until leaping involuntarily when my lips are close on his stomach, all the nerves in his (gold-flecked, I can't, they are so pretty) thighs set, suggesting what he should let go, where he is so anxious for touch and stimulation and cannot bring himself to say it aloud, dribbles of pre-come (so much, it makes me crazy to see it all, how he must be forced to hide it sometimes -- his pants -- if he wore silk -- should give him some -- when will I be in Vienna?  He might let himself think a bit about it, rub off a little under his desk, thinking of mine.  Kitty, you could.  Even with me at your side, you know you could, whenever, we agreed, whenever.)  Thinking of what happened.  I am digressing. 

I slipped my hand under his arse and he made a beautiful breathy sound.  "Kitty," I said, "that idea, about the things for bed."  I told him what I'd brought, that it would be for wherever he liked. 

My kitty gave me stockings. You've never seen such beautiful silk, heavy, very dark blue.  At first I thought they were black because of the poor light but they were meant to go with the gown. "In its unbuttoned state, though?" I asked. He swallowed and said, "You'll decide." "Lovely. Thank you." There are always tears, always. And this was not a good time, but they were right there. He must have seen that. He kissed my eyes and said, in the calmest voice, "There weren't many choices that would do you justice, and they are simple. As you prefer your things." Then he seemed embarrassed at his own explanation, as if it had been unneeded. I have no idea where that comes from in him, but so it was and I put my arms around him and told him they were brilliant, and he saw how they were making me, just from looking at them, and he seemed to relax a bit.

Continuing from above.  Dying.  D-y-ing.

They must have been hard to find.  Shall we say I have looked at them sometimes and they are generally not this sort.  He said there was one more thing, pulled on his pants again and left the room for several minutes. He returned warmer at the throat but with one of his more evil quirks of the brows, a challenge, and handed me a length of cobalt blue ribbon, about 2.5" wide, the sort they cut at an opening ceremony.  ("Trimmings.") The look on his face.  I put out my wrists.  "No," he said.  When he saw that I was getting nervous he cupped my head in his hand and he started kissing my neck.  "No, not on my throat, kitty." I said, waiting for him to agree.  "No, on your ankles," he said, letting his tongue loll up to my earlobe. "Ankles?"  "Though not tonight, please," he whispered in my ear, and nipped it lightly.  Well, I was gone.  And I told him he could have my thighs all in silk, and my ankles tied, sometime, if he'd like that.  He whispered, "Yes, I'll want to."  I will hear that in my dreams, I swear.  I didn't actually manage to put them on right then, the idea they were in the room was enough for us both.  He said he had not done those things before & and finally took off his pants and opened that lovely robe and rubbed his prick up my thigh when he'd just exposed enough skin to start.  Refuse, volume.  Stop yourself.  I could not.  He was aching for a fuck, getting so warm and hard against my leg.  "Kitty," I told him, "look how you are."  "Yes."  "Let's." "Explain." "Let's make love. This way, so we can talk, have you any idea how I'd like that?" "You shouldn't."  "We should."  He closed his mouth and studied my face.  "Carefully.  And we'll talk and kiss, it would be so warm and good, kitty, we can."  "Ah-mm."  "Love between men is incredible, or we would not bother, would we, no."  Lust had nearly eclipsed the grey in his eyes from what I could focus on at that proximity, and his breath was erratic as he lowered himself to kiss my forehead all over.  "It would hurt you," he said. His prick wasn't quite touching my leg anymore, curved up but soaked, it was beautiful, I'd have swallowed him down.  "You wouldn't, you're so careful, you'll know."  "This is worrying," he whispered.  "I can right now, it's all right."  "This.  Cannot be damaging.  You might consult this.  Before and after, I'll arrange everything."  "It will feel so good, and I can come that way, you know, that's why I'm wanting it."  "Oh.  Can you."  "I'm a bit girlish there."  "Really?"  "But that's a secret of mine."  He was studying me with that sort of calm that means he feels about to explode & I loved it, to be honest.  "Darling, come here," I told him, and put my arms around his neck to pull him almost to my mouth, "I've tried to be delicate.  And patient."  "That.  You have."  "I'm going."  "Going.  Why?  Ah, of course."  "And when I come back, my body will be ready for you.  Understand, kitty?"  I did not like to leave him that way -- he stared at me as I backed away.  "Wait here."  He glanced away and smiled at the nearest wall, one might say resignedly, but there was no surrender in it, no. I traded blue silk for blue silk.  I believe that was his intention; the rest was about me staying in the moment without getting an attack, or, hell knows what.  I came out in stocking legs, naked and half hard and dizzy, and he held an arm out for me, so I sat in front of him and leaned back on his chest, as we've done before, asked him to touch me wherever he liked, that he could have me, and his prick was pressed against my back, so long and wet, and I leaned forward & he took me on my knees, and he was very careful, his hands sliding over my thighs, the way he hummed quietly when he held my leg and then went so deep & told me to turn over, his eyes, his hunger for my mouth, the way he fucked so slow & looked down at my thigh in his hand & had to shut his eyes. And smiled.  It was fucking artwork, what he did to me, such control, held it in me & we literally talked it through & kissed with him holding me in one arm, rolling his hips so gently it was incredibly intimate, the most beautiful moments we've ever had, endearments I'd never imagined hearing from anyone.  He held me like a precious thing in his arms as only he can, and kissed my face and eyes and when I asked him for more he started to really fuck into me, it was brilliant & he smiled & could hardly manage to kiss me when I came first & I was so happy but I was sobbing & laughing & covering my face & he came so hard inside of me. Shocked at himself, worried about me until he saw that I was still laughing.  I suppose most people would have worried even more, but. We kissed for ages.  He wouldn't let go of me & long after he'd gone soft he didn't want to stop kissing me everywhere on my face and neck.  It was horribly ticklish but sweet.  Messy (he thought), beautiful, confusing but restorative & ours.  Someone hurt him but yes he can fuck and it is so fantastic there are no words for what that all meant.  He was so good, so there & possibly that is why we could, the right sort of talking and staying in the moment, without worries.

That shower.  I was oversensitive & every rivulet on my neck, every burst of warmth on my mouth, or scent or sound seemed to need its own manic description in my head, which was racing with impressions, obscenities and accolades. 

I could hardly finish the basics before I was losing it, wanting his fingers.  I told him so when I'd come back to bed.

(He wouldn't let me go to the other room.) 

 

_01\. Jun._

 

I regretted that he had regrets.  His were more of the 'I lost myself & should not have indulged & so readily & I'd not premeditated & that particular act & a threat to you & you do realise & you might have stopped my impulses' nature.  Mine -- of the 'that you even think that way is killing me bit by bit but I will smile through this' variety.  But I couldn't hold up.  Ultimately I shouted at him to stop apologising for doing something I'd asked for -- if it is truly 'concern' about me.  But since it appears to be about him, I cannot bear to hear another word from my own man that he might regret making me feel special, pretty, and loved!  He was mortified.  He took me into his lap to hold me & sd "an in-born gift for wrecking good people" about himself which I still cannot think of without crying my head off.  The metaphor had got to him after all, about the suit.  I won't write more, here.  But we will be all right.

And I’d no idea how badly I needed to be enjoyed, by someone else.  Pretty.  It had sort of died.  The way he looks at me: I couldn’t have gone through this with anyone else, I know that, now.  Or I'd not have reached it.  How we want to live.  Why we want it.  The way that desire to live comes on, as though it has never wavered.  As if there had never been doubts. 

I don't know how to finish this entry, tonight.  All I know is, and all I can express in words, is:  I want to live for so long.  Go white.  Get very old.  And laugh the entire way to my death, at his side. 

I’m in love.  For forever, so quickly. 

I'd nearly given up, you know.


	58. Primal things

_02\. Jun._

Thinking again about our "blue" night.  Pure magic, kitty.

The first time we were in his bed he told me afterward I was 'distraction itself' and that great poets would have poured out their ink in despair over failed attempts to describe me, such a beautiful thing to say.  He was so attentive, watching, worrying, and the most moving thing was how he gradually let himself...be, there. 

(My dearest Alexander....Catalyst, yes, & counterpoint....I shall never be calm again....It has become directionless because of its scale....my delight.) 

I will carry all that in my heart forever.  Who wouldn't?

He dotes on me, stares at me even when he imagines -- well, I was about to write 'when he imagines I don't see' but that's not the sort of man he is.  He does not hide that.  Yet I cannot describe him as clingy -- like S can be, at times.  It is all wordless, now.  Very intense.  I hope he's all right. 

He's got regimes.  He runs ("hamster wheel") every morning, first thing, for forty/fifty minutes.  (He won't let me near him when he does, or has, and has usually done it, returned, showered & dressed before I can pull myself upright in bed!)  He seems more dependent on them all right now and runs even longer. 

I'd want him again.  (Assertive language, Lexie.)  I want him.  Want.  (Primal things here.)

 

_03\. Jun._

Dreadfully empty in church, today.

 

_04\. Jun._

An alert.  He wouldn't talk about it.  I asked how it is possible to have multiple alert 'layers' to which the public has no access.  Internal, secret alerts of various sorts.  I don't like the sound of that.  He says it is more for organisational reasons & agreed it needs reform.  I have finished almost all of the drawings for The Spectator and now it's inking-in time.  I've been using the "virgin" (rapidograf nib) S gave me at Christmas.  S & I texted a bit in the late evening.  He's scanning piles of papers & it's setting off memories and ideas, of course.  J was out somewhere with friend(s), kitty in a session of some kind because of the alert & I will not see him.

Good news today, that two of the parties to the negotiations I "led" in Edinburgh have decided to move forward on a folk-themed ballet festival, in Zagreb.  I'm so pleased to hear that.  Perhaps next time there will be more interest?  Delays on the design of the pavilion in Beijing.  So much going on I'm certainly losing account of numerous things.

_06\. Jun._

Last evening, we were in my smallish bed, though not for the night -- I needed to rest, and he had my head on his thighs and petted me while he was reading and commenting on papers about 'yet another' training base that had been abandoned, presumably due to lack of water, though he does not accept that as the only link between the movements.  I should add that he was brilliant all day at work & I was so proud to be at his side at D St. (mostly I stood aside & could hardly show we know one another, and I was also appointed on the fly as 'troubleshooter in information freedom' during a meeting in a side-hall, OMG) so when he needed some care I turned over & put my arm around his waist & told him how much I adore him for everything he does to clean up the foreign intelligence lines & that he really might kiss me.  He replied that he really might & helped me up. There was no point in stopping once I'd felt how much he wanted it, too. So frustrated but keen and ready for something else. His hands slipped over my arse. Forward of him, he hardly ever does that, so I told him how I'd been imagining how big he is, and that pulse, his come, and couldn't we just have a little fuck, so he could come inside of me again?  "Are you very sure?" He was blinking, considering it as he might the content of any other resolution on disarmament, until I started to unbutton my trousers. "I'll go, and..." I said, and he nodded, "Of course, yes." He reminded me to stop what I could not bear, made me promise to, asked me again to, should anything at all &c.  And we pulled each other's clothes off  (mostly, I still had an open dress shirt, Lord knows what for) & I sucked him & got over him & rode his lap (I'd have gone down harder but he wouldn't let me and held my hips while he pushed into me, more and more breathlessly, though he wasn't talking this time, only thinking, and thinking, thrusting upward, me kneeled over him.  He likes when it's just the tip and I work it round a bit, my hips in his hands, and when I reached back to touch his bollocks he went mad, purring and jacking me over his stomach, this time not squeamish in the least.  (Dear freckles.  Mine.  Ha.)  So hot though, I thought I would faint, quite literally, when he came in me.  I was even more useless to the world once I'd quit laughing (how can he stand it?  I just can't hold it back, I either sob or laugh, or both, and he watches it and snickers at me, baring those canines of his, holding me).  And he'd reasoned it through enough this time that he wasn't so unnerved afterwards.  Well, only a little.  We kissed & later on I stayed against his chest while he read quietly, his heart pounding and his head over-occupied, a hand in my hair or on my back. 

Just writing this I'm in a state, again.  His lips are warm, the tip of his nose coldish, which always makes me smile.  If you were to draw my face and sketch a line from iris to the edge of my mouth, it would be the path of most tears, and what I am trying to say is that I managed to get his nose wet, again, trying to explain some things while he kissed my cheek and lips.  Actually, I was trying to thank him for the silks.  OMG.  He cut me off with kisses and said it was no bother, that I looked especially fetching in blue.  "Chin up, Alexander, no tears.  No."

16:20     A dozen red roses from my kitty!  I haven't got such beautiful flowers in many years.  Perhaps these are because he's been so busy. 

An even number, I thought -- not superstitious, ha!  I texted, "12, so not from your 2nd tailor.  Thank you, darling!" 

After a few seconds, this answer:  "You have more than one admirer.  MH"  I'm a bit confused, honestly.  I've no admirer, aside from the ginger kitty in question.

 

_07\. Jun._

I couldn't finish last night.  I don't know which of my feelings are safe to remember and which I might send to back to hell.  Book, arbiter, a word?  I dropped my pen like an idiot and smeared the corner of my last drawing, it's got to be redone, so watch yourself. 

I have to organise my thoughts, forgive me the preamble, I'm nervous.

It started like this:  “Bertie is for George, or Adalbert?” M was holding a report an inch thick and crossing out things emphatically with a broad-tipped laundry marker, rolling his eyes and sighing, "Abomination -- subcontractors in button-pushing is what it amounted to, you'd not believe the requested budget allotments."  (I was inking in the last of those funny zodiac-inspired-business-motif doodles for The Spectator, just across from my M, in my living room, and drinking a cup of rose petal white tea from him, the smell of which makes me think of our travels.)  I said, “Well, Bertie was short for Bertie-Bertie, you see.  Bertie-Bertie, when my brother was bored and wanted to see his own blood.  Lexie-Bertie was for when he wanted bruises only.  But the only person in London who would still call me Lexie Bertie is my solicitor.”  M raised a brow and hummed, “Mm, nnno.  Not so, in fact.”  I got hot in the chest, and I still don't know why.  Intuition?  The roses had set me off.  He'd not said anything about it.  "Well, right," I said, "and my former fiancée, Lena Noreen Tillburn," I said, for purposes of clarification I did not see the sense of, between us.  He shrugged, and then looked up at me, (not truly) serenely, "Or Carlton Aaron Parsons.  Who is also in London." 

Well, then.  The pen.  So.


	59. Full disclosure

_08\. Jun._

The roses are standing in front of me on the table, volume of mine, taunting me with their velvety, scentless, hothouse perfection.  Why on earth does my silly head tell me they are from Carly, when that is preposterous.

Another attack on my illustration for Der Spiegel, which has been 'appropriated by a certain layer' into pop culture, at least for this month.  M brushed off my worries that the Tate will not be keen to show my four 'sins' after all -- he smiled shortly (I mean briefly) and remarked/reminded me that evolution favours those who inform themselves of what the group finds dangerous, thus the fascination with death &c in media.  It was more profound but I am quite tired and cannot do it justice, here.

Anthony (1) staying on -- M wanted to give him the sack for allowing the delivery man through.  We had an abrupt exchange.  A1 has a 4-mo-old daughter at home & will not be cast off over a minor slip (which could have cost us both dearly, he snapped).  A1 will try harder.  It won't happen again, I am certain. 

I'm going to visit S on foot, and A1 will come with me.

17:50     While it might not have been the best idea, I didn't have a better one -- I spoke to S candidly earlier on about the roses, on the off-chance it had been a joke from his side.  He said they'd absolutely not been from him and explained several intrinsic difficulties, &c.  I think he was put out that I'd asked that.  (I didn't like to.)  But he wasn't in a position to say so.  Things are still awkward in certain areas.  He was watching me very carefully and I could see he was wanting to comment, knowing better than to start.  J must have spoken to him.  Or M.  Or both.  In fact, I know the two have been in touch twice lately, over the house.  I told S that Carly is home & he made eyes, asked what had possibly brought him -- the need to send roses?  Or had someone brought him over?  I started crying and he even relented & put an arm around my back, in the kitchen, and told me to watch myself, to collect impressions and evidence.  We packed some shells and mineral specimens in paper to use up some nervous energy and he talked about how J wasn't planning to keep his blog anymore.  I told him some more about Strasbourg and Edinburgh.  That his tailor is a genius and is making me some mad trousers (S likes buttons, too).  He finally handed over my art encyclopedia.  He's so lonely, actually.  When J is at work he is adrift in that flat, mind racing.  An embroidery on the reverse side, hair mad and uncombed, seams turned outward (though I do that sometimes, too) because they settle into his skin and make it crawl.  He has pretty toes, almost like a second set of fingers, and he curls them up when he sits.

Kitty had a headache this afternoon.  He elected to work from home, asked me over for company once I'd finished my drawing.  He isn't talking much but said he would share something of interest, and I am waiting for him to join me.  He is downstairs talking on the telephone, a lot of numbers.  Those are procedures, in code, part of a sort of matrix of them he has created, and Andrea + other assistants + contacts have keys.  Each of them may be a string of decisions or recommendations.  I don't know what is happening, as usual.  I can certainly rub his temples.  Or sing to him.  Or.

I don't know what time it is now, somewhere close to eleven.  He is sipping at cognac at the hearth, alone, though he should not.  If he doesn't come up within the hour I plan to go down and ask him to come to bed.  Our chat was edgy.  It could not have been otherwise.  Book, what a small world.  I'll never get over it.  It's chilling and reassuring in turns.  That there is order and design, after all.  Here is what I remember but there were other things, details:

"A story concerning nine years.  Listen.  Are you listening?  I happened on a point of intersection.  From the beginning.  £150K deferred at a loss of 12% before 2026 -- bonds and liquidation of an investment in African mines, the remains of your brother’s fortune after you paid off his debts.  From the third paragraph of your will.  To further the very work that has kept your photographer on the other side of the world.  In keeping with your character.”  “If you have an opinion to share about my character, go on.”  (Hearing it from M’s mouth was too much, awful.)  "I ran across it last summer, just before I viewed the photographs.  I found it curious that someone of your fortune would assume the lifestyle you had -- a freelance holding-pattern, at best.  I found you'd allowed yourself a modest annuity & tied up nearly six hundred thousand in wind turbine fields in Denmark, a long-term bonded investment.  Your will is curious.  I inferred decaying health."  I wanted to further C’s social documentaries and I don’t plan to change that in my will.  I explained that.  M answered, “Transparent.  You weren’t well enough to be included but you fancied you’d join him when you were feeling better.  A carrot you held before yourself.  Unduly.  Your romantic nature colourised that accordingly over the years.” 

Put in those words, years of directionless & self-defeating hesitation toward men, friends, ideas, travels were all put before me, in a transparent and I dare say humbling summary.  Humiliating, let's be honest. But I loved him, there wasn't a replacement for all that, and should there have been? I told M he'd made his point.  He shook his head.  “That was not to demean you.  Living with atrial fibrillation, on anticoagulants, with your social profile is unworkable when living in the outskirts of Bangkok among squatters and political criminals.  Your sorrow has always had much more to do with losing your health.  Though I don’t doubt the fortitude in your feelings, Alexander.”  “I can’t listen to this, please stop.”  “Fine, the point:  if you’d like to help this person along, sooner than after your death, there are avenues.  Alexander, collect your thoughts and listen.”  "I can't, just now.  I didn't want to talk about him, kitty, just understand.  But how did you find him?  All of this?"  "I am acquainted with his father, through Lawrence Collingwood.”  “His father was a steel worker and has been dead many years, darling.”  “No, you know him as your solicitor, Abram Mahlersohn.  A story for another day."  OMG.  That was a bombshell, really, but it makes complete sense.  The man's interest in Carly, alone, explained.  "What!"  "I am not finished.  Mr. Parsons' photographs and the activities of a cohabitant came to the attention of a certain nationalist cell who would take pleasure in sowing further dread among photojournalists as is the fashion, lately, in that region.  As a British citizen, social activist, practising Buddhist, and...more recently, inconvenient eyewitness, he was targeted.  The thatched roof on his house was set on fire.  Said friend, also English though now of questionable allegiances, was publicly beaten & bound to a post in a suburban market square, an ultimatum attached to his shoulder with a staple gun.  Out of fear for his life, the same individual began cooperating with local criminal contacts.  By association, Mr. Parsons was quickly jailed on false charges of agitation for foreign interests, obviously in hopes of receiving pay-off -- he was released readily enough, but his home was ransacked.  Mr. Parsons returned to London three days ago, with little more than the clothes on his back.  Most of his possessions were lost to pilferers during his stay behind bars." 

I couldn't think of a single thing to say and M continued, “Mr. Parsons should be encouraged to relocate to South America.  To Santiago, for the time being, and in a manner he will not connect directly with the work of our embassy." "I should encourage him?"  "A certain Chilean whose husband you sketched in February will provide Mr. Parsons a small flat in a safe district, where after debriefing and regrouping he will be brushing up his Spanish with two elderly housekeepers.”  M handed me a file and made an impatient sound in his throat when I didn't have the reflex to take it.  "Why did you bring him to London?" I asked.  "Alexander," M said (more sharply than needed, honestly),"I didn't bring him to London.  He returned to regroup a year earlier than he'd planned, after fleeing his home.  As I have explained."  "How do you know?"  "He's been debriefed.  His colleague has been arrested on return for his pro-terrorist activities until the nature of his ties to several nationalist riots can be determined.  English and American sites have been targeted."  "Why are you telling me this?"  "Forewarned, forearmed," M answered.  "Kitty, your brother thinks Carly sent me those roses," I said.  There was a very unpleasant silence. M shook his head at me but not in denial.  "And you agree? Did you know? And you'd punish A1?" I asked. "They hardly matter. I am not finished," he replied.  In general, the conversation was scaring me to death, on multiple levels.  The penetration in his knowledge among them.  It went on:  "You recall how many rolls of film were disposed of for every one image printed.  In the digital media, thousands upon thousands of images -- nearly all chaff?  Now.  A particular series of three in his latest album -- a demonstration in Delhi -- are poorer than all the others.  A young girl in a torn sari is holding a sign that says ‘I Take Liberties Through Education’ and fends off a heckler shown in the next frame, in which her face is blurred.  There is a gentlemen’s clothiers behind her shoulder, ‘Pearse and Lexington’ and by the third shot we see another demonstrator, whose shoulder obscures the lower half of the scene, allowing one to see little beyond two texts, side by side.  Three photographs, no digital modification, for an audience of one.”  I told him I didn’t understand a word of what he was saying.  And to stop, finally.  He left for a moment and returned with a small tablet that he rarely bothers with except for storing pictures, pulled up that exact page & held it out to me.  The texts form an unambiguous ‘Lexi-bertie’. 

I started to sob like mad.  How that must have looked to him.  I wanted to tell him:  my feelings are measured against the ones we shared because they were the only reliable ones I ever had.  How could I explain that?  There was no way, and the fact I was counting on his more-than-perfect understanding was even more disturbing.  It was a relief when he put an arm around my back and rubbed my neck a bit.  "I've no doubt he will pop by once he is over the worst of the jetlag," he said.  "Sorry?"  "I have not told you a certain point of interest, however.  Are you listening?”  He explained, face blank as it once was far more often:  “I attended a resource investors' conference, just over nine years ago." Investor's conference. I felt my gut go even further south.  "Accompanying a small delegation, superficially in the capacity of translator from French to Cantonese though in fact there were some unsavoury personages in the room that day and I was observing their contacts for my own knowledge.”  He was still petting my neck and shoulder, but almost mechanically.  “I overheard two men arguing vehemently over moral conundrums of diamond mining, as did everyone else in the room, through the hollow-cored panelling on the doors.”  “What!  Oh, no.  Not David and me!”  “Yes.  Last summer, while I vetted your contacts, I viewed that investment portfolio in renewable energy alongside that of your late brother’s in the mines, the dates and the solicitor’s name, and it occurred to me that I’d heard *you* though David was the one closest to the door.  Mahlersohn left the room in haste to silence you, recall?”  (My David -- he'd heard my brother's voice, yelling that I cared way too much for what one finds up the arse.  I can’t even stand to think about it, he was so horrid.)  I might have seen my ginger kitty that day, I might have looked right at him, who knows, I don't remember.  M sighed.  “You were less than n -- n.  No.” 

I’d never seen that before; he has certainly had that corrected through elocution.  Poor dear.  “Less than what?  Darling, what were you referring to, just now?"  And then he shut off, and removed his hand from where he'd been petting me.  Now that is my ginger kitty, dear volume, he could not tell me any other way.  He cannot simply say, "Your ex is in town, still cares for you, a lot of years to be lonely, I do understand, I wish we'd met before, somehow, but never mind, never mind."  He cares too much about too many things in it all, thus the layers of painful associative detail.  But he thinks that way all the time, about so.  Many.  Things.  Hundreds.  Poor, poor dear.  And he has handed me evidence that C still thinks of me, told me he'll come round, and is leaving me to it.  I cannot believe this.  And he won't talk to me about that part.   

I kissed his cheek and I'm here, resting in their Mum's bed.  He still has not come upstairs.  I'll go see how he's feeling. 

 

_09\. Jun._

Last night he was quiet, possibly tipsy.  I kissed him goodnight (because I have to -- we've agreed).  He pulled me into his lap and held me, and I asked him, sort of crushed in against his stomach (very warm), what he'd wanted to say at the end of his explanation.

“A remark, regarding the significance of a distance of five yards and nine years,” he said, and stared forward into the blackness of the fireplace.  I almost suggested lighting a focal point for us, there.  I tried to pet his cheek but he didn't respond much.  "Isn't this a small world?  Aren't we fortunate?" I said, and tried to get him to look down.  He nodded once and told me to go on upstairs and not to wait up.  "Kitty, I came to ask you upstairs.  And this is so nice."  "Go on to sleep."  I pointed out that he was exhausted. "And I don't want to be alone in bed when I don't have to be," I told him.  He studied me, helped me up.  He was truly tired.  But he held my arm as we went upstairs, and he warned me, as he does some nights, that he'd not be able to please me sexually.  Full disclosure, you know.  I undressed him and we kissed, and I fell asleep instantly.   

This morning I woke up to find him standing over me, already dressed in summer beige, with his umbrella in tow.  Watch chain, dark turquoise tie, perfection.  And his eyes like coal.  Unlit.  My throat was dry and I apologised for my coughing, to which M replied I'd spoken frequently of 'Mr. Parsons' throughout the night.  Blast.  He told me that it was time to have my blood drawn, that I should go straight down with the lady for breakfast so that I don't feel faint.  That there is a very good rhubarb-strawberry preserve for the scones.  That the new 'Heute und Morgen' is on the table and that the text on page 16 is of some merit.  He kissed my forehead, said he would call later on, and made to leave for his Whitehall office.  I asked him back and he sat down next to me for a moment as though I were a patient, and I took his hand and kissed it all over, avoiding the palm.  Cedar, orange, his pale, long fingers.  I kissed his fingerpads and put his hand on my neck.  He looked down at me but didn't say anything aside from, "You slept poorly."  "So did you, I think, I'm so sorry, I know I talk, it's awful.  Or snore, it's hopeless."  "No bother, I needed to think.  You're remarkably responsive in your sleep."  OMG, I started blushing.  "Wash up, Gladys will be here in less than fifteen minutes."  "Thank you so much, darling."  "Stay well."  He petted my cheek & then he was gone. 

Imagine, beautiful volume -- he'd left me a card at the table, under my plate.  I avidly collect his cards, you know.  And this one is different, no text.  Artistic penmanship, very precise while expressive and florid, of a bird, perhaps a dove.  Spencerian flourishes.  I texted him about it but he didn't answer.

I'm curious when he must have made it.  This very morning?  Early?

What on earth must I have been saying in my sleep about Carly?  I don't dare ask.

16:35      I'm on edge all the time.  Ironic that the very thing I once dreamed of, and for years, is the very thing that has me totally ill -- it came to my mind when Rodney drove me home:  if C is in front of my building I will not manage, we will drive on, somewhere.  He was not there, you see, and that I why I am able to write, at all. 


	60. As for a certain train-wreck

_10\. Jun._

 

Carly was just by.

Groats, apples. Lord help me if this is not the worst day recorded in these books of mine.  Should I even tempt fate!

Let me start over, later, book.  This is nowhere, as am I.

16:42     Carly has made an error in judgement, or rather, several. Costly, I can't, I simply can't accept any of this.  The mess. 

18:21     I'd just come back from the Diogenes, where I'd enjoyed two cups of oolong with M, having spent three hours in the morning at the MOD by his side. It has always amazed me how we are able to spot people even when they are that "wiggling iota of black" (to paraphrase W. M. Miller).  I should explain that it was sunny earlier on today and the pavements were radiating heat; it will storm tomorrow & I already have a horrid pressure between my brows from the wind that's picked up, tonight.  (Everything feels ionised, now, if that makes sense, and smells odd.)  It was when I was coming home by car and Rodney had passed The Speaker; he'd slowed to let someone by, and I spotted C two blocks ahead, that confident posture, head up, his long arms, his walk, even as his figure bent and quavered in the heat at his feet.  I panicked, even though I'd promised myself I would not.  "Rodney, dear," I said, "one moment before I'll get out, please park right here."  My heart was skittering & I wasn't ready to stand up so I watched Carly reach my building, ring, wait and look at his watch, ring again.  "Sir?"  Rodney said, a word meaning a dozen things, and watched me in the rear-view mirror.  "Thank you, I'll go out now," I told R, who exited the car, opened my door, bowed reservedly and nodded as I went past him, politely wished me a good afternoon and made no eye contact at all with C, who had turned and was gaping at me, while I tried to stop myself staring bluntly back at him and smashing the folio in my hand as I stuffed my lanyard from MOD into my pocket.  An impulse, to be honest.  He's not keen on 'government' and I'd no energy to explain my developed vetting status. Funny what comes to mind first. Or not.

We had a choice audience as we were standing there, sort of nodding and getting used to the idea of what years can do to a person's hair, skin and heart, one arm's length apart, in front of the doorway.  I remembered myself and put out my hand.  He looked down at it and back at my face before taking it, hesitantly, like I was tricking him.  "So nice to see you," I said as calmly as I could, and then realised that it sounded sarcastic or (?) I couldn't analyse it.  The moment dragged through us.  Suddenly Carly shook his head, swore, dropped my hand and grabbed my face, and kissed me, full force, as he had last.  He put his other arm around me tightly and groaned, "Hnnngh, God, Lexie." It was madness.  My body went mad, as well, the adrenaline was agony & I thought I would faint.  My lip cracked against one of my front teeth and started to bleed.  Copiously.  I turned my face away and told him to stop, to let go of me *immediately* just as Anthony (1) lunged at him & pulled him off me from behind & threw him to the ground, a knee against his kidneys, arms twisted back & upward, as they do.  A1's jacket was open and yes, he was armed, which is the one thing Carly could see when he tried to turn his head, a pistol in a holster and a can of tear gas.  He was so frightened, his face got skinned against the pavement along his jaw and cheekbone, and it was very hot.  Well, he'd just been in a foreign prison for God's sake, had he not, and yes, he has visible trauma over his time there.  I pulled out a kerchief and wiped what I could off my mouth & Carly was shocked that I was bleeding so much, thinking he'd split my lip far worse than he had.  I told A1 to let C be, that I would manage.  He was not keen to leave my back for a second, aware his job hangs on a thread.  I pulled him aside and tried to explain that I would take it from there.  He shook his head & wanted a word from M, of course. 

The word was 'withdraw'.  A1 reluctantly listened.  So there we were.  The long-awaited reunion of Lexie and Carly in London.  Well-registered for posterity from several angles.  Rodney coasted up to Anthony, who hopped in, and they drove off.  C watched all of that, too.  "Lexie," he choked, "what in fuck's name was that for?"  "My bodyguard.  Just come inside, I can't."  "Are you having trouble with someone?"  I shook my head because my mouth was full of blood again.  When we were in the lift we both looked like we'd been in a brawl.  Forewarned, forearmed? I was just thinking, kitty, I'm so sorry to trouble you with all of this, so sorry.  Withdraw? I was thrumming in places I haven't in a very long time, which made it hard to stand still.  My heart was all over the place.  In fact there were many thoughts, each trying to be first and foremost about how I might make the following minutes something I could survive.  I don't know how to put it.  "Yeah," C said, "So, a long time --"  His lips were unsteady, I noticed that next.  His eyes were enormous, round & anxious.  I was at home, after all, and he was in shock, several sorts -- culture not the least of them, by then.  "I should have called ahead," he mumbled, "I've not got a mobile yet."  I shrugged as we got out of the lift and I looked for my keys in my folio.  He was staring at my smart clothes.  A complete contrast to his own.  He looked tired, even old, close up. Sun damage.  The smell of him was overwhelmingly familiar while foreign.  Or I wanted it to be. 

I was unready for what I was in the middle of doing, letting him in.  It was like physical and mental stammering.  Self-consciousness, another cycle of panic, another.  Everything made me think in circles.  The first object he saw coming into my place was the beautiful silk gown from M, draped over a chair.  And a stick of matte rose lip balm on the coffee table and grey kohl liner.  Alongside some of my conte crayons.  A drawing.  I gestured for him to go to the kitchen. The oolong had hit and I went to the toilet, spat out a mouthful of blood, could hardly piss straight, tried to get my lip under control. 

"Right," I said, once I'd got it together enough to come out and join him at the table. "Let's talk, then?" I opened the kitchen window.  The camera across the way was pointed straight down at the road. 

I made some green tea but forgot to pour it.  He didn't notice and once I had, he drank it cool -- hand unsteady, calloused fingers.  I looked down at our hands together on the tabletop and thought: delicate me, never worked for a thing, a small bruise on my wrist from bumping the door -- instant purple.  Carly's head was nearly shaved, thinned in back, a bit of white flecked round the hairline.  Stubble on his face, the start of a beard.  Blotches of pigment on his nose from sunburn, lines deeper around the mouth and those I'd loved around his eyes, when he was smiling, were offset by deep frown lines between the brows, nearly as pronounced as J's.  His clothes were of heavy cotton twill, home-dyed and threadbare on the elbows and cuffs.  They looked very soft, dark green, burgundy.  He is chapped.  Worn.  Patched.  I fancied I'd changed but in fact aside from a few lines, mostly from smiling, and the grey, and the eyes which are starting to show a bit too much experience, I look more similar to the person he remembers than he does to the one I do (did that make a shred of sense?). I'll pick this up later.

The rest.  Book, the irony!  Start to finish! I don't wish to negate what I have, that is not the point, and I shall never regret for a moment what I have with my kitty.  But why!  How I am supposed to feel at any peace, tonight?  Can you imagine? Carly said: "They were all for you.  All of them.  You didn't look at any of my pages?  All of them were for you.  I didn't know how to tell you any other way that I'd made a mistake. I have thought of you every day."  "Carly, don't."  "The scarf, the pictures, didn't you ever look at them?  Or the interviews?  The author photos?  The scarf -- from you?  Always?  All the books?"

I was so confused.  "I'd not heard enough to know I should be looking.  In fact, I heard nothing from you, whatsoever.  How should I have known to look!"  I started to wind myself up.  He said, "How could you drop things.  Just drop them."  "I didn't!  Drop things!"  "How could you not want to know."  "Damn it, Carly.  What are you asking me?"  He put his face in his hands.  "It felt like things never ended, even right now it still feels righter than anything else I've ever had.  Do you understand?"  "They ended.  You left," I told him.  "Look, Lexie.  If I'm too late getting this through to you, I don't know what I'll do."  "Carly, don't say that.  You set the date.  You left.  I waited for a signal from you, I was losing my mind.  Why did you assume! How could you assume so much?"  "I don't know. But I can't walk out of here without an answer, Lexie, and I can't leave London again without you or I'll fucking -- "  "Carly.  Stop there.  You're mixing things." 

That all sounded awful, coming from him.  He was always so grounded.  I was scared of myself, too, right then.  My body was screaming -- not even for him, there, but for all the shadows, fantasies, their accumulated value.  My empathy, my worries.  My new feelings for M.  It was like watching a film of fire:  the senselessness of expecting warmth, the memory of the warmth.  M is my sun, it's so clear, I love him so much.  Even so, my disgusting feral self, the one who conjured C hundreds of times over those years, let's be honest, who helped me keep it up with other men -- before my kitty, could still feel what had filled my head when there wasn't anyone who felt so good, who looked at me right, tasted perfect, had no barriers? 

Testosterone -- he is hairier in places than before -- ears, brows, at the neck.  The way the irises are rimmed in a liquid brown and filled in green.  Bloodshot whites.  It was today, wasn't it.  He took my hand and I let him, partly because I could hardly process that he was doing it.  Across the table.  It was bizarre.  There was a pause and we looked at each other longer.  I started to panic internally, over that hand.  The camera.  I'd nothing to hide, I decided, it does not matter. 

He ended what was becoming an edgy silence:  "Still gorgeous, looking at you again, it's like home, I'm really here," & added (I wish he'd not said it) that -- should I write this?  We always were very blunt with each other, no time wasted & when he wanted to fuck, he said so.  Today, after all those years, all those times.  What a twist, book.  I can't even.  He said, "Feel that again with you.  The blue thing, in the other room, it's yours, has to be, &c."  My eyes watered again but I said, "That's out of the question, no."  The lizard brain lost, had to lose.  There was no temptation, beyond the most primal, fleeting thoughts we all have.  

I asked about his work.  He was still stroking the palm of my hand with his thumb.  "Yeah.  Sure.  But you've been keeping up, though?  My feeds?  Lexie, relax.  Easy, we've got some time, right?" he said, and I saw he looked hopeful.  I shook my head and asked him which feeds.  "Babe, have you seen all of my albums?"   "No, only part of one that Abram had from you.  No.  India, the children of the rivers, the drowned girl in a basket?"  "I don't want to talk about that right now.  I guess what I'm saying is, Alex.  I can't sit here anymore and not have you in my arms." 

The one thing I'd wanted to hear the most, for so long, and now it didn't fit anywhere.  At.  All. 

He was about to stand up.  I've learned a thing or two, having the friends I do, and an imagination.  I didn't want to go through it. 

"Carly, don't, in fact I'm seeing someone, this needs to stop," I said.

He shook his head.  Denial and intent.  "'Someone'."

"Someone, who matters," I added.  "Let go."

"Hm," he murmured, "New, though?"

"Not entirely new, no."  That came out wrong but I couldn't find the "correct" answer.  Yes?  No?  New, newish?  When you feel you've known someone forever -- like I'd once felt about him.  OMG, fuck.  Writing this is making me ill.

"Can't see it.  I mean, on you," he said.

"I don't think I understand," I answered and pulled my hand back.

He crushed my wrist in his fingers.  "Lexie."

"Stop. That was actually a mistake, in the airport," I said.  "Neither of us were man enough to do it.  We should have ended it.  It was left open."  And I was thinking -- be a man, be the man you just admitted you'd not been!  "Stop.  Look.  What.  You're doing."  Nice bruise, already starting under his thumb.  He let go and bit his lips. "I love someone else, stop this, it won't happen for us, again. Ever."

Carly shook his head and sniffed.  This was the worst of all.  He said:  "I know how you look in love.  And it's not like this."

My temper.  My stupid temper.  I kicked the table, our cups went skidding, and I shouted, "I'm talking to you!  Not him!"

That was one of the worst things I've said to anyone and I still can't believe how it came out so readily. He shut his eyes and swiped a hand over them.  "Okay.  Okay.  Take it easy, sorry.  I'm sorry.  Oh, fuck."

"Nine years, of total silence, for God's sake, and I should be grateful, for -- for what, exactly! That I'm still -- ah, attractive to you? Lovely."  He finally nodded.  He was crying by then.

"You've changed," he whispered.

"Same flat, same old furniture!  Same number, same Skype handle, same email address.  All kept, for years.  And why!" I answered, and waited for him to catch up.  My heart was so loud. "I ought to have responded to feeds. Perhaps. Well, you left! You left according to your chosen priority! Path!"

"I thought about it but it was never, yeah.  Never the right time, I was always moving.  You thought about me, too, I know you did."  He looked down at my wrist, but not the one he'd bruised.  He'd noticed, you see.  "What's that noise I keep hearing?"

OMG.  I wilted inside, really.  Even with the window open, he could hear.  "My heart."  "Why does it do that?"  "Do what." (Do what.  Do what!)  "Tick, sort of?"  "Because it's working."  I pulled my shirt down a couple more inches so he could see it.  "A new valve."  He winced.  The deep furrows.  "Oh, no.  When."  "The fourth of January."  "This last January?  Oh, fuck.  Lexie.  Are you okay?"

(Not entirely.  No.  Or, yes.  Correct answer, please.  Please.) "Yeah."

"Oh my fucking God, it's doing that all the time."  "Yeah, it is, in fact, indeed it is."  "He -- your -- he sort of has to get used to that?"  "Used to what?"  "Tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick."

You would slam closed, too, book.  Or blur.  

My mug survived.  So did I.

Enough of this.


	61. Oxford

More, as I am calmer, now.  Marginally.  To pick up from whatever that was:  it's late & I cannot sleep, partly out of desire & partly in anticipation of a trip to Oxford tomorrow, but let me try to put some order to things.

Re. "sth to get used to". M was right about sadness over lost health and chances, the inability to follow. It all poured out right then. I don't know how I looked. Good I don't sweeten tea, for reasons. When I lost my temper, Carly jumped up and picked up a towel from the counter-top and bent over to clean the floor.  Yes, my Prince Albert mug had gone flying.  C tossed the cloth into the sink and stood up.  "Alex.  Look.  Calm down.  I didn't want it to go -- like this.  No."  He gestured helplessly at the floor, at himself, at me.

We could have stayed that way for hours, listing regrets and shouting.  I once told him, after all, that I loved him, and I did mean it.  Those things matter forever.  At least to me, they do, and he knows that damned well. It’s why he came on that way. 

We weren't together long.  I realise now I wanted intensity and attention, and I did have that from him, I cannot say otherwise, he was brilliant, caring and sensual.  He spoiled me at every turn, showed me off, when we were out, and that felt very nice. Was fantastic in bed, was creative and thoughtful to the very end, in that airport.  With that cut-off, game over, Lexie. He wanted someone devoted to him and I really was, I even wanted to settle down, perhaps try living together, somehow. I could see a life of that, and wanted it like air.  When they passed the laws, and I heard, I thought of him and cried all day like an idiot. And other days, too. The truth is, if I weren't involved with M & had Carly come home a year ago or six months ago, well. We shall not finish that but it hangs there, does it not, with its swollen answers.  He knows that, and M does, too. And would it have worked?  Unanswerable, and that is for the best. 

Neither of us anticipated the hurt and the anger that actually came out in my kitchen. It was awful.  We did talk rationally, later on.  He's been through a lot, lately, it's written all over him.  A text came from S, I ignored it, then another.  I excused myself and wrote, "CAP still here".  He texted back, "Don't be an idiot. SH"  (The one thing that made me smile inside -- I fancied he was on M's side, possibly even 'ours'.)

Carly and I looked at some of my artwork, it went calmly enough.  He'd not known about the Der Spiegel cover, the illustrations, and so forth, of course, I've no internet portfolio. And I showed him the bits of the frieze that will be in the Tate.  Proud to hear.  And he's won several awards in the meantime, more than I'd heard about.  It's safe to claim that he is one of England's better photojournalists and regularly has spreads in top press venues, it's very impressive.  He feels naked without his cameras, and literally mourns them. He wanted to show me part of his portfolio but it wouldn't load, in fact the page with his archives wasn't working at all, despite our efforts to look at it and he was panicky, understandably.  It embodies 13 years of his work.

We made plans to meet again in several days, for a less charged coffee, and he'd show me his pictures, somewhere, at a cafe, my choice.  Of course I'll go, we won't leave things like this, he is certainly no enemy of mine and he really needs to talk.  So do I.  As much as this is awkward as hell.  But in the end, it was not my fault, I am repeating this to myself like mad. No need to apologise, for not being amenable, after nine years, that one gave up. That I gave up! Why shouldn't I have, years ago I should have!!  No need to apologise for having been kissed against my will in front of no fewer than four cameras, a personal guard, all verified by my lover, who still hasn't said what he felt about it and probably will not!  

When I called M's Whitehall office, Andrea took the call. I was to come to M's house at eight in the evening, so I showered, changed into something nice but less nerve-brushing than the black suit, and went to see him.  He received me at the door and looked me over.  "Good evening," he said.  "Good evening, kitty."  "Have you got it out of your system?" he asked airily, stepping aside to let me in.  I took in a breath and -- very nearly exploded on the spot.  "What?!!" I was so done, seriously.  He raised his eyebrows and pressed his lips together (the equivalent of 'I believe I asked the question' in a grimace). I could not believe it.  "Insufferable!" I told him & pulled the silver device out of my pocket & made to ring Rodney, who was doubtlessly close by as he'd just driven off.  M glared at me.  "Put that away, this instant," he literally hissed.  "Goodnight, Mr. Holmes," I said, and nodded my respects, fully intending to walk off to the nearest road, I was so furious at him. He caught my arm. "Stop it," he said. "Out of my system?! Indeed!" I yelled, and threw off his hand. Another bruise. 

He opened his mouth but I cut him off. Never again.  I threatened him but I was so bloody offended & I meant every word -- "All insinuations stop here, or I will not cross your threshold tonight or any other night."  He looked at me, pure ice.  At the time, I wasn't even sorry to see it.  I'd entered a headspace that felt almost story-bound but for him to be cynical, after what I had been feeling (which I'd felt safe in) was beyond the pale. He looked me over for several seconds, raised his eyebrows and sighed, "I see. Please come inside." "Are we clear!" "I don't doubt your faithfulness." We looked at each other for a moment and he added, "Put that away. Come, please." "Kitty." I broke down, it was impossible not to, I was a wreck. He gestured and I went inside after him. He was also affected in his own way but said, once he'd shut the door, "Now. Tell me how you are."  "Kitty, 'if there were no main topic --'!"  "Yes. 'There would be subjects for conversation.' Hush, no, that won't do, Alexander, no tears."  "I’m so glad to see you, that's all I wanted all day."  I put my arms around him as tightly as I could stand it.  He rubbed my neck and kissed my cheek. The cook was making noise in the kitchen & I tried to quiet down.  Embarrassing.  Then again, she's heard me sing Gilbert & Sullivan, accompanied, at speed, before noon no less.  Mercy.  Poor Gladys.

We talked over a cold supper, mostly about his appointments, avoiding the events of my day, thankfully. He'd met S after I'd left for home, and they'd been together when A1 had called to ask how to proceed. Of course I didn't mention the texts I'd got. Or should I have? A side note -- S is going out to Eastbourne for a few days to set up house, there. This is really happening. M has mixed feelings, too, many of which concern not having S close by, for the first time in years, but as a permanent change, if that makes sense.  I'm in total denial, actually.

When we went upstairs kitty asked to see my wrist and forearm, asked if he could kiss me. He was so careful. And made a little game of avoiding my upper lip, but wound me up all the same. "Tomorrow, bloodwork.  Save your afternoon and night for me," he said. "Saved," I said. "Veins bared."  He grinned.  Canines.  "Have you got plans for me?" I asked.  He kissed my forehead. "I'm waiting on a text, I'll tell you later on." There is nothing better than to curl up in his arms, once he has pulled off most of his clothes & he holds me & pets me. His energy. Tonight he was distracted. And he didn't like that I had been about to run off, earlier on, and asked for my side of what had happened with A1. I told him what I could remember. He listened and said, "Mr. Parsons knows what you are, or so he thinks." "Sorry?" "This is not over, by any means. Alexander, take care of the situation as you see fit, you know my feelings." "Kitty, it cannot be on terms of 'getting it out of my system' in your eyes, I won't stand it." "No." Suddenly his mouth was straying all over my neck. He worked along my entire jaw line, leaning over me with his palm over my hip. I couldn't keep my hands off his back. And arse. He was in pants with looser legs and shirt sleeves unbuttoned. About when I heard rain start to pour outdoors, a bit of thunder, I put my fingers up inside from behind and asked if I could feel him, maybe more. He sighed against my cheek and agreed, opened his legs a little, and breathed against my neck (the noise on the roof -- the hammering up there, M's sighs accordingly louder) and I massaged his perineum and bollocks for him until he was leaking.  Short, hard wet thrusts within my fist.  I sucked his fingers for him -- I love that, as he is right at the edge of orgasm in that rage of pleasure, which doesn't entirely get expressed, only in flashes, not unlike the lightening that hit close by, a ready-made analogy for our nerves. He came so much & was so relieved and petted me all over.  I could hardly stand for him to leave that bed, even for urgent things. He came back and pulled my pants aside a little to give me a hand.  It, well.  Was quick.  He said, "Your toes are especially pretty when they curl." I sort of looked at him and said, "Oh? Is this a case for 'show don't tell'?" He put his arm around me. "Tomorrow night we'll look into it again," he replied.

Plans, indeed! He'd received some sort of message in the meantime -- with the smallest smile, ever, he said, "Ah. I've got a meeting at eight, it's imperative I be present, but if you are agreeable to a trip mid-day I'm taking you out of London. To see the Bodleian, if you like. We'll be staying at one of the Deans' cottages." "To visit your favourite corners in Oxford, oh, absolutely." OMG. "Very well. There's an archive I'd like you to see," he said & we kissed some more for goodnight. It got more heated again and I'd really have gone for more, really, kitty.  (Alexander, don't press your lip, it will crack again, allow me, no.) He licked, the naughtiest tonguing, like a light rimming to my mouth, it was brilliant.  Now I've sort of come to, but I was drifting, just then, and I was imagining how I might kiss his entire back, his arse, open his hole for the first time, yes, and yes.  Lexie, mind yourself.  Never.  OMG, I am so randy tonight, emotions all over the map.  This storm.  All the confusion yesterday, Gracious Mother, my head is in such a mess, but at least I know who is whom.  

I'd like to go give him some more kisses, he's reading a massive file on Cuba in his bed, right now. Book, what would you do?

Precisely.  Ask him what to pack.  How much silk and where.  Mannish, passionate being, beautiful ginger.  I will gladly.  Show him.  My regard.  Oxford?  I might wear those pretty blue stockings to the archive, under my clothes.  Shall I go and ask him?  No.  Show don't tell.  Ha.

_12\. Jun._

Yesterday in Oxford.  We had to leave this morning early but it was so pretty when we were there. Soft, large clouds in a sunny sky. A much needed escape from our London.  Imagine this, book:  we walk into one of the archives at the Bod, M nods to a colleague of his (from his uni days? no idea) "Mert."  "Mycroft." And we are left alone among the most precious manuscripts, where we definitely should not have been at all, things which are, say, 300 years old or more if a day, and he points out a humidity monitoring device.  "Only measured breaths are allowed," he remarked.  "Sorry. What?" I asked.  "Alexander?"  "Yes, darling."  "There is something I have wanted to do, in this place."  "Mm, like what?"  "It has come to mind.  As...I have already implied.  Come closer, please."  "Kitty, what?"  He put his arms around me and kissed me rather hard, with a deep groan, so much passion, OMG, his tongue slipping over mine, hands all over my face and neck, shoulders, back.  He was so happy -- my kitty, and it was such a pleasure to see him like that.  He moved to stop and I told him I wasn't counting.  He said I might, since another few minutes of heavy breathing will be recorded for posterity on the humidity register paper, by those tiny wands, so count, count away.  Something occurred to me:  "You brought me here to make an attempt at affecting the humidity monitor, with heavy respiration in this small space?"  "Indeed."  "Endangering world treasures, precious manuscripts for my pleasure! Honestly!"  "Ah, for my pleasure as well," he quipped and grinned like a schoolboy, caught.  

It was so ridiculous that I almost couldn't stop laughing long enough to oblige him further.  He is a fantastic kisser, the way he reads me, starts carefully & puts all of his attention to it and holds me, runs his hands over me.  I was -- fraught.  Fraught is the word.  After a few more minutes of that, I tried to catch my breath and as he was still kissing my neck, because of my lip, I just said, "This is for always, isn't it?  Tell me it is, to me, it is." "Mm," he replied, and put his nose over my collar, where I'd overdone the irises, again. "Clarify," I told him (as he often says to my own monosyllabic grunts). "'This'," he said, "you stated that to you 'it' is 'for always', and I agreed that it appears to be the case in your thinking.  Don't interrupt, no.  Where 'this' signifies 'our relationship'? I consider it unending." That was a very interesting choice of words.  Knowing how carefully he presents them, under circumstances like those, where I sprang something on him, that way. I was so happy, I started to babble. "Kitty, imagine that among these old papers, someone wrote a promise and it has endured? Look how these things have survived so much, so long, and those promises are all still there?" He smiled and kissed my cheek all over. And showed me some old texts where scholars had pencilled in their own remarks & funny notes, some also in inks that have faded to oxide brown.  Many of them were absolute snark & to laugh so much, with his strong arm around my waist, standing so that I could lean against him and steal kisses over his beautiful neck, was one of the most perfect ways to spend an afternoon in Oxford, ever imagined.  The only thing that could have made it sexier, and I was a bit nervous about setting him off there in the archives, was what I had on under my trousers, and had he run a hand further down, he'd have felt the bands at the tops. Well. He took me to one of the Dean's houses, all in spires, where we would have rooms upstairs, tiny, partly in sandstone, arched ceilings that were almost too low in places, with little wooden doors and heavy curtains, Neo-Gothic furnishings, very atmospheric.

He had some calls to make and came back about half an hour later, bare-footed (!) in nothing but a button-down shirt and cotton trousers. I need to tell him to dress down more, he was just gorgeous.  I had to take it all off of him, quickly. He put his hand over me and kissed me until I was a complete mess and he asked me to get ready for bed, that I'd seemed aroused for hours.  Of course I had been.  And he whispered in my ear that he wanted to have me from behind, if that would be all right, that he's been thinking about it, and would I manage to kiss him, &c. "Chair, bed, window?" I asked, and got a lovely purr in my ear in reply. "Standing, sitting? On the floor? Window sill? Balcony?" He snickered & I told him to take off my trousers for me and when he saw the stockings underneath, OMG.  He'd not deduced it, and he was so keyed up that I'd had them on earlier, too, obvious from the marks they'd left, &c, you know how he takes things in.  

I love to see him like that, it's far too rare a state, but try to surprise my kitty, book, it's almost impossible.  He was so hot, massively hard, perfect, rose, so beautifully curved up, that moment you (I) don't know whether to stare, paint him, or beg to ride him. I was so ready for him, but he did like to be teased a little, which is new, where before he did not like "coquettish" behaviour of any kind and seemed disgusted by it. Now, no, dear volume, he is learning to be cared for, and looked at in new ways, as I am, when he gazes at me so warmly. I cannot recall that anyone ever looked at me that way. He nibbled all the rose balm from my lips while he put his hands over my arse and ground it all against me, nice and slow, so good.  I pushed him into a stuffed chair with a broad seat, the 19th century sort nobody would really sit in, seemingly for gathering coats, and got in his lap, which he actually loves, and the sound he made when I started to turn around on his thighs and he realised I wanted to be fucked right there, from behind, yes, ginger kitty, like that, Lord, he was ready for it but took me over to the bed, kissing me up the nape and leaning over my back with that gorgeous hair on his chest brushing against my shoulder blades. He was also in the mood to tease, smiling against my neck and petting my arse, pushing my thighs apart and sinking into me so gently, a hiss of pleasure when I helped him in and gave him a nice, long rhythm to follow, arching my back for him so we could still kiss.  He is an incredible fuck.  He held me and rubbed my back and stomach for me, kissing me everywhere he could. His strokes, his control, and I told him, make me feel like a man, you understand how good you are, there? Perfection. Staying so deep, of course he can.

Later on he was holding me and staring into my eyes and he said, "Your laughter, in bed, Alexander," and then didn't finish, and kissed me more. I think he wanted to say he liked it. Which is fortunate, because I couldn't stop when he tickled me everywhere with his nose and lips. He told me, "I've wanted to visit this place again. It's a room I was given once as a favour, when I was preparing to defend my first thesis." I said it was lovely, and the balcony very, very tempting. "Perhaps because the place across the way belongs to a theologians' circle," he said, and chuckled.  I told him how nice it was that he chose to bring me, and he kissed me again and told me to close my eyes, that he wanted to try something, which sounded rather dangerous but was actually my kitty attempting to tell me he would like to suck me.  Well.  The upshot.  Sorry, sorry, yes.  I told him to bring me back to that magical room of his *whenever* he wanted. It was so easy to forget the world, there. Thankfully. "I've lost so much time," he whispered later on, and kissed my jugular. "Not true, you've done so much with your life, haven't you.  Don't contradict the value of your own accomplishments, that's absurd."  "True."  "But you will bring me here again. And make love to me just like that.  Shall I tell you how it felt when you came, naughty kitty?" (Huge eyes.  I am his taikomochi, am I not, and that conversation had been about to take a rather gloomy turn, he is prone to some rather melancholy spirals, so of course I tried to deflect it. We've both lost a lot of time, if we want to start counting. I'd rather not. Maths were never a forte of mine, anyhow, at least not as much as denial.)

True regret: in my life I have not been given all the chances I needed to express my love back to those I wanted to, for as long as I wanted to. There. We'll leave that unexplored, for now. As I write this it occurs to me again and again how much hope I have placed in my kitty, that he will let me admire him back, as we declared. I will not want to place any limits on that as long as he admires me. It's so simple. There is no set end date. He has said as much, has he not. A declaration among volumes which have centuries on you, my little one, many centuries.

Unending.  No set end date.  None.  Let us reflect on that.


	62. A gentlemen's agreement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We now enter into the 6-month patch between Sketchy 2:54 and 2:55.

_13\. Jun._

Drawing all afternoon and lost track.

Importation correlations.  Yes, there are some: the sound of his voice in the air and my desire to breathe.  I needn't have written something like that to him.  I can't remember the exact words now but I'd considered it pretty and he was very upset by it.  I never learn, volume.  He worries, or is it that I give him additional grounds to?  He does not need that. How he can stand this is beyond me.

 

_14\. Jun._

Kissing my collarbone and sternum, which he rarely touches.  The clicking.  "What is it," he asked.  How does he always see it?  "It's noisy."  "Don't agitate yourself needlessly." "Kitty, it must annoy you, too."  "Only its absence."  OMG, that is my kitty.  I love him so much, I have to catch up.

A worse day yesterday and nothing was working for me. I asked him to stay by until I could sleep & he did.  Our time in Oxford was beautiful & I still feel it all the time in my heart, even this minute.  Kitty, openly happy, whenever behind closed doors, at last.

Recovery. It differs each time, of course, each surgery completely different, on a body at a particular stage.  This time, physical recovery is going well, better than the mental side, I think, though separating them is probably pointless.  I don’t always recall how things felt just before, except that I wrote down things that suggest how exhausted I was and how chaotic my thoughts were (more than now, imagine -- I should be more grateful).  Today I read over some bits from December of last year.  I probably should not have. I wanted to remember my feelings.

I Skyped with S and he walked me around his place with the camera in his laptop.  His greenhouse looks like a focal point for the house, very nice.  He calls it "John's orangerie" & he is moving furniture everywhere to get things ready for his officer.  He consulted three different arrangements with me, with charts, during the day!  I thought all of them were fine.  He is bored there, alone.  The silence needs some getting used to, he said, but the air 'stimulates thought'. He asked whether Carly had finally shoved off and I was impressed that we chatted 15 minutes each time w/ no snide remarks re. M, whatsoever, aside from sth about suits in summer.

Now, I'm seeing Carly in an hour.  He's chosen the venue.

18:48     OMG.

C and I had a nice chat, mostly about changes in the London scene, which I have never known the first thing about, meaning a 9-yr absence was no handicap.  We went to look at espadrilles (for him) & joked about Grindr (the seller was getting 'pokes' and couldn't focus, even on Carly's tanned, long and high-arched feet.  Ha!  I remarked that if I were bent on stalking and murdering gay men, that Grindr application would be my weapon of choice.  He and the shoe-seller both sort of stared at me.  Well, it's got downsides, hasn't it.  Not the least how it works on the imagination in awful ways.

Everything was fine until we tried to log in to his online portfolio, where he has his archives.  He went white and his hands started trembling.  "2011's been deleted, Lexie," he gulped.  "All of it.  Fuck.  They're scanned, because of the climate, you know.  They were safe, until now.  Can't believe it."  "What's going on?"  "Nothing...nothing, don't know now."  His eyes were brimming with tears and his hands were shaking, he couldn't count his coins.  I did it and told him, "Let's have a walk?"  Not good. We left the cafe we'd stopped in at and walked through a green square before he could talk.  "Can't believe it," he said. "About the photos? It's a glitch, dear, it can't be that bad," I told him.  "They deleted it."  "They?" I asked.  "I've lost two years' worth, all the shots, all of them.  They want something."  "Who?"  "I've got something they want, and that's why this is happening, fuckers."  My heart went south, he sounded almost delusional.  "I can't imagine who would do something like that to your art," I said.  "Babe, I'm in a Catch-22." "Not that, don't. How is it a Catch-22?"  "Sorry.  Alex. Bill did some shit during and after a protest.  He'll go to prison.  This is serious.  Look. Look what's happening."  He shook his head and closed his eyes, explaining:  "I've got photos he wants.  He said a randomly chosen year of my shots for every 24 hours' delay, and he's doing it."  "Who?  Who is this person?  What are you talking about?"  "It's about something that happened 17 miles outside of Bangkok.  They've got questions, took us in when we arrived at Heathrow, you know.  Bill and me.  And once more, asking me questions in a building at the riverside, at night, that's when this deleting -- look, I wasn't any part of it, just shooting marchers that day.  Fuck."  "Who were they, dear?  Please go on."  He lowered his voice, "There're three of them.  Two agent types, one officer.  Mainly it's an agent, a tall creeper with an umbrella as a cane, sort of, he talked to me the most."  Instant headache, seriously. I drew him out, very carefully, shall we leave it at that.  He'd met my kitty twice.  Both times, M put forward a gentlemen's agreement -- to avoid arresting and charging him for obstructing a military investigation.  Certainly for my sake.  And Carly refused.  M is applying pressure where it hurts, indeed.  

"Carly, give them the images, don't be obstructive, you'll not win this." "It's sixteen shots, that will send Bill to prison for that many years, he made some mistakes."  "And you're helping, at an expense you can hardly speak of.  You'll suffer even more in a full investigation.  Cooperate with them and save your work, your eyes, justice for others with no voices.  Their stories should be erased to help one man, whose guilt you've affirmed, for a few more days?  Bill has to and will answer for whatever he's done, you can't protect him, ultimately.  Where are the photos, actually?"  "They're on a pen drive at my aunt's."  "Okay.  When you decide to help, which you really should, we won't let you be affected any further, I promise."  "We...!? You don't seem to get it, Alex, what happened."  I took a deep breath, and asked him, "No, but has Bill's eyesight returned to normal, and has his shoulder healed fully after the beating he took in the market square?"  (Perhaps I've learned a thing or two.  Carly's eyes widened first and the fear worked through his body, until his knees were bobbing.  He wanted to know how I'd had a clue about that.)  "I occasionally work for the MOD and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Carly, and --"  "What? Fuck me, you're lying, you have to be, but you never lied, ever, what is this."  "Bring them to me, and I'll do what I can to stop what is happening to your archives."  "No, babe. Come on, Alex, no. You working for those -- people." Suddenly he started putting things together.  Well, he is clever, no surprise.  "No, come on, what is this.  A take down.  Oh, that's what that was about outside your place, that guard?  Wait, so did you know I was back home?"  "I did know you were in London, yes, but the incident was -- the result of what you did." "Sure. Saying hello, after all those years, you know? I was supposed to shake your hand? Your hand."  "Carly, don't start again." "I thought that was off.  This was all set up. You? I don't understand anything, anymore.  Fucking police state...."  "Carly.  Listen."  "Fffff. Why did I come back, fuck this place, fuck this, all of this."  "It will be over soon."  We talked about the moral problems in it.  He knew what to do.  I tried to explain how to walk away from everything, safely.  "A place to live, in Chile, for you.  With a family in Santiago.  Will you listen.  They'll assist you in starting a new life in a less hostile and very photogenic place so you can move on to others, for instance in Peru and Bolivia.  I'll help to arrange it for you.  Do the right thing, please, we'll make that happen."  "Leave this shit, come with me," he said.  "I've told you why I cannot, I have someone."  "Can't leave without you again, Lexie.  This is why, look at you, you're the one.  Nobody else ever cared."  "No, I won't go, ever."  It was so much to actually say that, and to Carly, of all people, it was very intense.  Massive pounding in my ears, by then.  "Because," I told him, "I want to see you happy, doing what you love, what you've always planned to, abroad.  That's the path, you said."  "My worst mistake."  "Don't make another by refusing to cooperate, now.  Take the chance, you'd wanted to go to South America.  Do it."  "Chile.  Government employee.  What does Dave think of you doing that," he murmured.  "David died three years ago in a street accident.  Can we not?"  "Oh, fuck.  I keep hurting you over and over, another fuck-up."  "You didn't know.  You didn't know any of this.  It's really all right, dear, please, it's just life, that all it is, life, isn't it?"  We had our arms linked by then, there on a bench, a couple of kisses to the cheek, nothing friends can't share.  It felt right at the time and I went with it, though A3 was about four yards away, watching everything like a statue.  I told him to bring the pen drive, in the evening.  "I'll ask my boyfriend over and you can talk," I said, "because you've got things to clear up."  Carly shook his head and huffed loudly.  "Hah, no, I don't ever want to meet him."  "You already have, Carly.  The tall gentleman with the umbrella." 

I might have seen the next bit coming.  He'd seemed calmer, though.  He fell apart and it was awful to watch, even A3 stood up. I felt quite useless.  "A set up, he used you!" he sobbed, so much, he was so upset. "No, not a set-up. Of course not. But we're talking about the same person, that's all, he wanted to help you." "What the fuck! A set up!" "No, to avoid trial. Give over the pen drive. Shall we get it over with quickly?" I asked.  He agreed.  I called Rodney and we (and A3 in front) all drove to Carly's aunt's & I called my kitty. It was a line with little encryption so I addressed him formally. "Good afternoon, sir. At your earliest convenience."  M needed no explanation & replied he would be at Great Peter Street in an hour's time. So we rang off. "True love," Carly muttered and glared out the window. That really hurt. "Don't judge." I got out and I thought I would explode. Somehow I did not. Actually, I'd gone totally numb, aside from a headache. 

M was punctual, he'd come straight from sth on Downing Street.  He was so handsome, such presence, I would have kissed him.  Absolutely impassive, however.  Carly stood up from my sofa when M walked into the room (at my advice). There were no introductions or opening gambits.  "I've got all of them, sir, they're all here," Carly said tightly, and reached into his pocket. He handed M the pen drive.  "If they weren't, the matter would leave my hands," M replied.  None of us moved to sit down.  "About the missing archives," I began.  "Can his photographs be recovered, the ones from the archives?"  "Yes," M said.  "Oh, thank you. Thank you," Carly said.  "Excluding your portraits," M replied, to me.  Carly stared.  Before he could comment, M turned to him, as though he'd finally noticed him in the room. "A fair exchange, Mr. Parsons.  Restoration of three missing years will coincide with the deletion of Alexander's photographs.  May I take this opportunity to inform you that any attempt on your part to open, copy, display or otherwise distribute photographs of Alexander, in printed or in electronic form, for your own use or that of any third party, will result in the destruction of all electronically stored materials of your authorship, held by yourself and the media you have worked with.  If need be we can pull all existing publications from sales venues and the nation's libraries, archived periodicals included.  For a start. We have people for that."  "Kitty," I said, without controlling it.  Carly winced.  He looked close to a meltdown, I felt for him, really.  "It follows that you will hand over the negatives and printed copies.  Shortly.  A guard will accompany you to their location," he continued.  "All 623 images on roll film, all prints still in your possession."  Carly was so gone.   I was taken aback that M was making a personal demand, at all.  Well, to Carly it was more like his worst nightmares about invigilators and censorship come to life in front of him, and over me, no less, our pictures.

Another train wreck.  Except this one was about Carly's mental state.  I asked to speak to him in the kitchen.  "Sodding maniac."  "Don't.  He is the one keeping you out of a mess, remember.  Chile.  We can do that for you."  "But I'd never sell you out, I wouldn't, they were ours, just for us, I wouldn't show anyone," he whispered.  "It's more about the danger of someone hacking in, than an attack on your character in particular, I swear, it's not about you."  "Sure.  Oh fuck.  Alex.  Permanently?  With him?"  "Yes.  Please don't judge so easily.  You've done the right thing.  You look terrible, dear, breathe." I put my thumb between his brows, to remind him to stop that awful furrowing, frowning.  "Tea?  Cognac? No?"  I poured one for kitty, though. "You're going to get hurt, look," Carly said close to my ear.  "This isn't a Bond film," I told him.

Well, it isn't. It's my life.

23:38    Just a final note, it's late.  I have all of the negatives/pictures.  I would never have wanted this & I told kitty he went too far.  He replied that he will rest better.  Granted, he has some issues over images floating about in cyberspace -- the film on the microchip of S's crime -- and I do understand his need to protect me in the face of prying media, people in his section or possibly that committee, etcetera, sb could try to manipulate him. With time/technology dev. it would be harder to protect those things from hacking, and yes, my cock was visible in several, or I was pulling open my trousers and laughing, about to jump on C, several made up, most merely portraits of my face, though. Hard to look at them. So hard. This is all hitting me with a delay to be honest. Stomach. Enough for tonight.


	63. The console

_17\. Jun._

The bruise on my wrist has faded and the roses' heads have collapsed. In fact, the bouquet has just been discarded. Anxiety over Carly's presence in London, and his offers to take me away from "all of this" has abated, somewhat.  It's tense when we talk. We do talk. I don't really want to go into it more, at the moment.  Shall we say, book, that he is not accepting explanations of plain fact.

M doesn't refer to Carly though he is aware I have gone out with him twice for coffee/decaf and to do some (minor) shopping.  Yesterday I told kitty:  "You were too hard on him.  He didn't warrant those threats."  "Those are common enough, to preclude blackmail or libel we have numerous ways of neutralising data...."  M trailed off and shook his head.  "Alexander," he said, after a few moments of my silence, when he softened his stance & leaned closer, to kiss my cheek and prod me to accept him, until his lips found mine again.  "Are you feeling well?"  Not really, kitty, I wanted to tell him. I've been nauseated for nearly a week, the smell of food makes me salivate in the wrong way, and when I see kitty it's a kind of relief that leads straight to weakness. 

C is about to replace two of his cameras and spends a lot of time talking over details about technical things that I don't know anything about. 

When it comes down to it, I know little, in general. 

S is back at Baker Street from a 6-day stint in Eastbourne (he was climbing the walls until J came to see him) -- he is here to command the rest of the move.  Packing essentials, now.  S needed something to do, so he and I went to Frederick's together (no rude remarks this time) to pick up my trousers.  They are marvellous, my third piece of bespoke clothing with sets of twelve buttons, he observed (a jacket with six buttons on each sleeve, the woolen trousers with the mad placket, and these). "Meaningful." "Yes, dear."  "Mhm." He narrowed his eyes and snuffed, saying that he would never go in for patterns below the waist (he has his own ideology). But he agreed that these are interesting: fitted, in a traditional window plaid (good for spindly legs) with six brass, oxidised metal buttons from knee to ankle, on the outer calves.  Those, S liked.  Perhaps they reminded him of something military.  F understands "clothes for a man in love".  He'd needed more time than I'd expected to make them but put extra detail into them, like notched slash pockets (for larger hands, for instance from behind, delicious), a wide, raised waist, another notch in back, and flies with hidden, pretty, flat brass buttons.  They are fit for a costume museum, rather like me.  Ha.  This could become an addiction, I admitted on the spot.  S, who always seems to correlate my mood with my material acquisitions, shook his head and glanced away. "Happy?" he said.  "Oh, absolutely," I replied, and tried not to preen too long.  In a moment, he remembered himself and stopped whatever had been up, next.  I wonder what J must have said to him, mercy.  He did ask about my wrist once we'd left F's atelier so I explained what had gone down with Carly in my kitchen and he nodded and left it alone.  He seems to be serious about bee-keeping, and said he'll be keeping a flock of trained pigeons that the Slovakian family will not be taking abroad.  I don't know what to think but if he's happy doing that sort of work, in place of what he once did, very well.

A bit of drawing this evening.  It's hard to focus, especially when it is so hot in the evenings. Kitty will come by later on, he promised he would.

23:05     Earlier on I kissed the back of his neck where he has lots of little freckles and almost made him spill his tea at first but he wasn't annoyed.  Such nice skin.  Being morbidly pale we are not creatures of the sun.  But I would want to see him a bit pinker, he would be so beautiful that way.  I imagine him in a spot of shade, nearly naked, reading quietly, and I would gladly lie at his side and pet him as long as he wanted, doze in the warmth.  Wait for him to take me indoors to kiss me and let me get hard in his mouth, when we are both warmed to the bone, that he would coax it all out of me, that once I was impatient, waiting, he would slip his fingers into me (he hasn't ever).  And out again, in, testing me, watching what I want as it grows more and more unrestrained and I can’t resist saying things, asking in all sorts of ways.  Moves, breaths, attempts to say it -- “yes, Alexander, say it.”  “I need you, now, all of you, let me have you.”  And he would want the same.  That is the miracle of love, the great equaliser, that brings two people to sameness, in place & in moments, with corresponding hopes & wants -- that beautiful abandon of time and space for love that I dream of when I see him there, so tired, so overwrought, and he looks up at me, smiles. 

His shoulders were knotted with tension all over, I wish I could take him somewhere pretty.  A forest.  A lake.  The Cotswolds, though none of my family are still there.  And in reality M wouldn't hear of it, especially not now.  Three elections in the span of a week and a half and he is wound up over each of them in a different way.  Today, another one, and he was pleased over the initial exit poll data, I've no idea why it will matter to our currency market in a year, but so it is.   He was here for about two hours, after we'd had our suppers separately, and he left just now to go home to read more into the night.

Like when I startled him, kissing his neck.  Tonight, just earlier on, I did manage to get him relaxed, it was brilliant to see him so relieved and happy.  The way he looked at me before he went home.

How did it start.  (I know precisely how but let me replay this in my head a few more times, it was gorgeous.)  I'd switched on my Uncle Henry's console, an enormous thing with a turntable under the lid, built-in speakers and LP storage cupboards. When not in use it looks like your everyday veneered sarcophagus with portly legs.  It actually has to warm up inside, for reasons of its own, before it can be used.  And while M was in the kitchen (washing tea cups for me, so sweet of him) I chose David's LP of Pink Floyd (DSOTM, "the ultimate English audioscape, listen up Lexie Bertie", I remember my brother saying before he pushed me out of the room and turned it up until the floor trembled).  I know every click and pop and skip on it, and most others, actually.  "All right, kitty?" I asked, to which M nodded & sat very still, listening, holding my eyes from his chair until it was worrying, a bit.  He rubbed his lips with his fingertips but his face was blank of expression, in the worst way.  When I couldn't bear to guess at the meaning of it anymore, I put my arms out.  "I'd like you closer, you know, come over," I said and he did sit with me, on the sofa.  But he seemed anxious, neck and forehead damp, but not saying a word about why.  I still don't know what that was.  I kissed his fingers and chin, and pulled him close for a kiss.  The first ones were very soft, he was enjoying the rose on my lips (what was left), and I had the impression he wanted to tell me something.  But soon that changed and he was all over me, needy but not talking, breathing heavily and pulling my shirt out of my trousers rather quickly.  For him, that is.  I was in heaven, he was licking at my mouth and tongue and pushing his prick against my palm.  We were well on the way to my bedroom (staggering and kissing in that direction) by the time (Great Gig) was on, I love that song so much.  I wasn't about to bother with turning it over and I almost said that (ahh, the joys of (not) turning over your album mid-shag, I'd nearly forgotten about that...) but there was no time for it, he was taking me apart with his mouth and running his hands suggestively over my arse, holding me there.  No restraint in it, at all.  "Want it?" I managed to ask, barely, he was turned on enough he didn't really answer in words, which made me feel even crazier inside -- seeing him like that, that it's because of me.  I caught his waist and pulled him against me more.  I put my lips on his throat and kissed him wherever I could and pulled his shirt open, his arse in hand a bit, too, all that running of his in the mornings, good, very good (and I will have it someday, I shall). 

He backed me into the doorway of my bedroom and took my chin in his hand & kissed me against the wooden framing while I opened his trousers and gave him another little rub through his pants, sensual licks from him all over my collarbones, my lips in his hair, I could have done that for ages, all that moisture, I loved feeling it start to seep against my fingers, that it was for me, that I could pull it out and lick it any moment.  It was warm in the room -- I kicked my trousers off & heard the album end, the metal arm ping and drop, a switch, the buzz of the console, sounds of childhood anticipation.  His breath on my cheek, another hum altogether, pulling me back to the work he was making of me with his hands, on my hips, he needed to put it in me, like I needed him to & I told him -- on me, come on -- his breath on my chest and neck, the way he breathes, I wanted to feel all of him pressed over me.  "Just take it out and love me, kitty, I want to come.  Can you?"  "Yes," he gasped, and we almost fell into my room like teenagers.  I barely got his clothes off, I was in such a state & lubed him & gave him a condom this time & he set me on the edge of my bed & held my arse & slipped in slow and smiled when I put my legs around his back, but he was very much on edge, every touch affecting him & he let me writhe up against it, take what I needed from there, under him & it set me off very quickly.  "Girlish," I moaned, really, I don't even know what I was saying at a certain point.  "Not the word," he panted, and licked into my ear, and said the dearest things while he brought me off.  "I told you, you see what you've done to me, kitty," I said.  He was close, too, so in the moment, he was tonguing me everywhere I love, and I heard him say something about irises & when I was more than done he wouldn't let me go & held my head & kissed me deeply.  "What are you going to do?" I asked him (as if I'd no idea at all), and he pulled off the condom and poked that bare beautiful rose prick of his between my thighs & asked me to cross my legs at the knee & I put some of the anise all over him & he didn't need a lot more and fucked and came in my thighs from behind which I thought was very sweet but to him seemed a dirty indulgence.  Lord, even now, I can hardly write this without wanting his hand around me, again.  I need it.  He touches me infinitely better than I can, with intensity (love) I cannot give to myself, ever, too ironic in my thoughts, or.  (Sorry.  Book, this is a lot for you, I realise, but we're all men here, aren't we.)  How did I get such a lovely man, really, he is so good to me.  And the way he says my name, with adoration but in a virile growl, I can't, it makes me absolutely weak.  

I love him dearly, so much it even hurts.  I think I'm tired.  And I can't even remember what I'd set out to write.  

It's not a good idea to write this down either:  I wonder, at times, how his experiences with women must have looked & I even want to ask him some things.  So do you like Pink Floyd, kitty?  Mercy.


	64. Kitty's 5 word essays

(I should not have.  Curiosity won out. I told him I'd looked through his notebook.  He blinked, and after several seconds said, "No bother."  By then he'd picked up something else to look at.  I've rarely had so many and so few questions at once -- many that condense into few, perhaps one.)

 

Rare                                       warmth,                                void                         of                           pretences.

Seeming                                 incapacity                             for                           lying.                      Bewildering.

Perchance                              I                                            merely                    invented                  you?

Sallow.                                   Your                                      despair                   is                            costly.

Insoluble --                           are                                         we                         very                        certain?

Your                                      ‘eternity’.                               A                            siren                      call?

Languor                                 as                                          admission              blocking                 mechanism.

Mistakes                                concerning                            sharing                   when                      unprepared.

Acknowledged:                      postponement                       among                   detestable               constructs.

Advantages                            in                                          mutual                   agreement              ensued.

Forgetfulness,                        relief.                                    You                        summon                 this.

Might                                     hours                                    have                       their                       forenames?

Name                                     them,                                    fool!                       Dread.                    Complacency.

Often                                     referring                                to                          love,                        discursively.


	65. Love among us

_20\. Jun._

It's a lovely afternoon, book, and a good moment to put a few things into words.  Don't misunderstand my reticence about writing things down these past few days.  It is not out of consideration for you, as it should be, no:  that would take the form of not writing anything, ever again.  I'd hate to leave you that way.  Nerve pain in the chest, you see, does plenty to slow me down.  It scares me & I must find a way to calm this or I will not be able to go out tonight to see my M.  The sense that I am ruining things (which were not okay to start) with C, through my own tactful approach.  Eustace said once, "The grace of an iron pipe would have sufficed", because even as a young teenager I tended to pretend all sorts of things to avoid criticism or arguments, and made a mat of myself because it was somehow easier & allowed a certain illusory moral high ground.  I am foolish with these things.  So, true to myself, I have been misrepresenting my feelings.  

I am close to crying constantly, whether or not it is expressed.  I am further unnerved by the need to keep this fact from kitty, who would be worried over the rumblings of organs which should know better by now to ignore the workings of this greying head.  He does not need more worries.

18:45     Spending time around C should be more neutral than it is, to him especially, and this is where I lose my footing.  That figure that was C, that one lover I could not get over, has completely collapsed, as a construct in my head, of memories.  Does any of this make sense?  I can't express it elegantly.  But it was 9 years of it, book, and it leaves things in you.  Regret is the simplest to identify, but there is more.  

When I was at C's side, walking down Chalk Farm Road to the Market in Camden, for instance (so many people, their eyes), he was talking about aperture or some magazine editor I've never heard of, and my silly head was running over his voice, how it was -- once -- sex to me.  We were so into one another, physically, mentally.  What was *it* that tied us so close together?  The challenge of keeping that together (for me) the desire to show me off, impress me, excite me? We both know I am nothing but an ear to his ramblings about work and life but he swears he would want more.  Expert ear-lender, middle-aged ornament?  You see, pretty volume, I'd never noticed -- or it is a mixture of previous ignorance + change -- that we've got dreadfully little in common.  Aside from a love of art, an interest in people and their feelings, some political views, sexual compatibility. He's lovely, moves well, people notice him, he always was magnetic. But he's not engaging for long, when I'm accustomed to M's sharp situational humour & his instant if not anticipatory responses to enormous sets of circumstances.  M speaks almost axiomatically instead of babbling on, no sprawling reflection (that's my area).  His knowledge.  His concise memory, powers of observation, knowledge of the human heart, motives.  Conceptual brilliance, kindness, manners, excellent taste, I am so spoiled.  I am perfectly safe and cared for like few men in the world.  OMG, I adore him so much.

I wonder that the one I may truly be hurting is silent, while the one -- and here I cannot find the words, again.  I will therefore record C's words as of Wednesday:  "He deleted you, and part of me, that's fucked."  "Removed images out of cloud storage.  Keep emotions out of this wherever you can."  "Keep fucking emotions out!  It's about you, I love you, I never forgot, I swear it."  A3 was so close he heard every word, I could see him out of the corner of my eye.  "Carly.  Don't."  "Don't love you?  Is that some sort of order?"  "Don't speak of it."  "You've changed so much," he said.  "I should hope so," I said, and called Rodney to bring the car.  I wished I were Randall, whose ripostes can stop a man mid-leap.  Moreover, I wished I were nearly anyone else than what he imagined.  "I want so many things back," he breathed, and shook his head.  I looked at him and said, and this was costly -- "You cannot change things with declarations, of any kind," short of saying "I don't love you now" which I cannot do: it once drove me up multiple flights of stairs, did it not!   "I'm the one who's watching you [with that X agent -- he'll never make you happy, look at you]" &c.  Blast it all. 

21:49     Change my mind?  Never.  Mess with it enough that we won't be able to share this city?  Possible.  I already feel destructive.  To him, to myself.  I told him we will only meet to discuss his arrangements to Chile.  I nearly lost it but got through it and managed to call R and leave calmly (I already wrote that I called R.  Wake up, Alexander).  He was so angry and hurt, I can't go into detail. 

22:25     I have tried to be a friend and I will not end every day completely ill.  Endlessly-uncomplaining volume of mine, it began the moment I heard M say "C.A.P....also in London" and the feelings it has dredged up.  Salt to delicate places.  I should have remained cordial and distant.  Haven't I?  Mostly, yes, he claims I am 'icy' & 'serious'.  The sort of remark that cloaks a request for change.  Or tries to oblige it.

 

_21\. Jun._

No, we should not meet, after sleeping on it, completely alone, I am certain we should not see one another, at all.  This is my own trouble, caused by all the years of 'pining' (S nailed it, yes, pining, he understands what it does), as I've said before, when I wanted exactly this. 

Last night a nightmare that I stabbed myself through the heart on a key and the clicking would not stop.  A pacemaker/anxiety motif.  Since "Character Assassination Nr 1" I have had a bit of a block.  I need to return to sketching for myself without an audience.  Narrow things so they aren't all so salient at once.  When I feel this way (not an attack -- I will not let it happen) every detail begins to demand notice.  Sounds, smells, temperature changes from room to room, the clothes on my back.  Imperfections (mine, those of my little world but mostly mine, my noisy body, the valve, the stomach, the bowels, the ringing in my ears, the way my fingers don't want to move quickly.  Dehydration?  Perhaps.  Too much of this. 

I called kitty and he said I might come to see him at seven this evening, to call R and come for the night.

 

_22\. Jun._

Darling, I would be grateful for a referral to someone discreet regarding pharmacological treatment for anxiety, with experience treating post-op patients who have acquired prostheses or who have undergone major organ surgeries.

So I told him over dinner. 

Occasionally he goes so still it scares me.  The blankness in his eyes, followed by a flash of anger, poor dear, quickly suppressed.  I knew it would be upsetting.  I'd run through that sentence in my head for an entire afternoon and recited it to him like a machine.  One that cries after it recites.  I fought impulses to change the topic.  Silence felt far better but only after a half-minute or so, once he'd reabsorbed some of the chemicals thrilling through his nervous system and started to move again.  "Of course, I'll arrange it," he said.  "Bloodwork first."

"Thank you," I said, and lost it even more.  I stood up to leave and he stood as well, gave me his arm, and took me upstairs, where he held me in bed and petted me, and told me a story or two but I couldn't laugh.  "Alexander," he said, "You'll stay close by."  "I will."  "Give me your word."  "I will.  It came on during the Liberian riot, when you were at those security meetings and it won't stop, I don't know why."  "You'll conquer it," he said, and would hardly let me go, even to the toilet. 

 

_24\. Jun._

It was a reaction of medications and a slight electrolyte imbalance, not certain why, perhaps the heat in recent days?  It's better, now.  (How can kitty stand me, really.) 

We'll sleep in one bed for now, meaning he'll sleep poorly.  He's not asked for anything more than kisses for a number of days, I've lost count.  I asked if he needs me or if he'd like something from me & he apologised, that he had been elsewhere in his thoughts (S will be moving in officially on the 1st of July) regarding several unusual demands from one member of the security committee which suggest someone has noticed me.  Those individuals hold each other in toxic nets of interests, favours, deals and threats.  Some of the most powerful figures in our country -- the pettiness among them, where you would hope for transparency and generosity, is rather disconcerting.  He wouldn't say more.

I haven't been in touch again with C.  M is going to speak to the Chilean ambassador.  I'll write more on this another day.

M plans to go to a medical/historical event in Stratford upon Avon just after S moves house.  It sounds much more like something S would attend, with J.  There is a historical epidemiologist (by training; he is an army doctor) there M wants to speak to.  Over brunch at his house he said he'd get far more out of the trip if I were along.  I told him that yes, I'd gladly see to it that he'd get far more out of it.  He tried to clarify but ended up blushing at the collar.  "Kitty, people take their partners to events all the time, where is the shame in it?"  "There is no shame," he answered. And explained that he was trying to refer to "the pleasure of having someone to ask along" and was "coming against various needless innuendos at every turn". I told him, do spill them. He shook his head and said it would be a tedious 2 days. And leaned over to kiss my forehead, adding: "You'll be free to look around, perhaps you'll do some studies?  Watercolours?"  Changing the subject. Ech. "It sounds lovely, why not?"  He looked me up and down appreciatively and said, "And I'll need you, in the evening."  "I'll need you, too.  You did mean tonight?"  (In Stratford!)  "Perhaps it's become too frequent," he said.  Gladys came into the room to refill his cup.  I shook my head to her offer of tea, and winked at him.  He gulped and nearly choked.  "You might ask for me even now, you've got nearly an hour," I whispered. He looked at me squarely. "Please." "Kitty, kindly help me upstairs."

Grinning -- I can't even say which of us was worse off, but he took me up to his bed on his arm.  Or rather, I used that arm to pull him onto the bed first, and sat over his lap and kissed him, petting his temple.  He was so beautiful and red in the cheeks, excited at his own spontaneity, after the evenings we've had which have been spent close but with far too little concentration on pleasure.  He unzipped himself and pulled my face even closer to kiss me back.  I could feel him take himself out, wanting to be touched but worrying about his clothes (he was fully dressed but we took some of it off.)  I tugged my trousers down and he pushed my pants off my hips and I told him how much I want it.  Not that it wasn't very apparent, I was shaking.  He put his hands over my arse and let me grind my cock against his in my hand.  "Kitty," I whispered in his ear, and felt him smile, that it was tickling him madly, "it wasn't too frequent, at all, let's not count."  He held me and kissed my neck, and said, "At odds with wanting to remember how you are --"  "No counting.  Let's love each other."  "Let's."  OMG, what a beautiful smile. I kissed it. And I got some fantastic, intense kisses in reply.  He set me out on his pillow and & sucked my lips.  But he was thinking, and thinking, and thinking.  The only thing he said was, "dearest Alexander", and he purred when I rubbed his back and thighs.  I wanted him to fuck me but couldn't really then & I gave him a good hard hand instead & had him watch me at it between us & he petted my pants and kissed me.  He was calmer afterward, even once he'd realised the actual state of my shirt.  And we were supposed to go to Dept. for Int'l Development at one, ha. This is making me so randy now & I should never write these things but it was so beautiful, I cannot resist.  I'd spent so much time winding myself up over my own anxieties and now, the body pleads doubly for him.


	66. Pap as plan

_26\. Jun._

At Baker Street to see S.  Almost all the shelves and surfaces are empty -- it looks strange without books and bric-a-brac, which seemed permanent in their own dusty ways.  The kitchen isn't packed up & there is still scientific equipment all over the table, much more than usual, and I could see loads of clothing thrown over a chair in the bedroom, some boxes in the hallway.  There are cartons in all the corners, in loose stacks, and the mirror is gone from above the mantelpiece.  The sofa is piled with lamps, and several outmoded printers.  S presented me with a stack of handmade papers of varying thicknesses and colours and asked if I'd like to have any of them.  He also pulled out his sketchbook & showed me some not-so-recent drawings he'd done, which I'd not seen, of glass objects from his table set-up in the kitchen.  Nice -- if he'd only concentrate more, he'd do lovely technical studies. 

J was also home, seated just in front of their sink, peeling potatoes and carrots over a bin, biting his lips and humming bits of a song by Deep Purple I can't remember the name of. When I got away from S I greeted him properly and chatted with him a bit until S swooped in to make me a cuppa (red tea & honey) & asked where Carly was.  "This is a pungent honey," I told him.  S shook his head & propped himself in the jamb, arms folded, tongue working over the inside of his cheek.  J looked over at that, and back at me, so I explained, "My ex has just come back to London after 9 years in Asia," and he mumbled, "Oh shhhhit --" (He'd almost sliced his finger with the knife.)  "Give me something to cut," I offered, "since we're on the subject of exes?"   J smirked down at his hands and remarked, "Nah.  That's the one who got his face chucked on the pavement?  When you were over at your brother's?" he said to S.  "Yeeesss," S said.  I added, "We'd not ended things properly and everyone was caught off guard." Like a dubious romantic comedy.  Or a certain scene that is my life at the moment.  (My nose was already running, it's not over, at all, book, though I am trying.)  "Right," J said, and cleared his throat while I tried to get my eyes to stop it.  S wandered away into the living room.  "You know, those are sort of, uhm, interesting," our officer said, and waved his knife at all the buttons down my calves.  "Oh. Frederick made these for me and I hardly want to part with them."  "Yeah, he makes, uhm, good -- yeah."  "And his clothes always lie well."  "That's true," J answered, glancing over at S, another case in point (I shall not go into detail about draaape). 

I mentioned that S had given me a laptop-tour of their new home and J brightened a little.  Asked what I thought.  "I like your greenhouse," I said.  He nodded, "It's warm, it's -- uhm. It's a nice place to be, out there."  I sat down next to him in an awful metal chair, crossed my legs and smiled.  "Well, you can see the garden and whatever is happening out there, whatever at all, and you can...sit back, and watch. Him. At work. On a warm day -- going about, you know, out there," I said, as softly as I could stand.  (He couldn't.  His ears went pink.  Oh, S, you have it so damned easy, he adores sexy scenarios, you're very right.)  "Well. One thing, though," I added.  "Hmm?"  "Drones.  Paparazzi, blackmailers, foreign intelligence probes -- and those glass walls, the open terrain, you know, John, it's a risk."  He frowned and said, "Hadn't thought of that.  Hmm, yeah."  "You can't be left at their mercy. I'll speak to kitty about it," I said, and he gaped at me for a second and then nodded.  (S made a hissing noise in the living room, entirely for J's benefit -- he deduced I call M "kitty" from the hidden text in 'Character Assassination Nr 1' a month or so ago and has mocked us both over it, not that M particularly cares, those two, ech.)  "Everything all right, lately, I mean?" he whispered, tapped his chest and rounded his eyes significantly, when S was looking out the window at the street below and tapping his foot.  "Oh Lord, yes, I got the wicked one," I told him.  "Wicked -- valve?" he asked.  "Oh...ha, you meant heart valve, sorry, oh," I said, re-crossing my legs to the side like a girl, and J looked away at the wall studiously.  I'm awful, I know.  But he's so uptight, mercy, he's asking for it.  He makes M seem utterly tranquil, even after those parliamentary spec-committee sittings he dislikes so much.  

J stole another look at S, who spun around, hummed, waved his fingers and started shuffling through some papers on the mostly-empty table next to him.  "Yeah, okay.  Good," J coughed.  "Invoice for the flagstones!" S said to J, producing a thin yellow carbon, and to me, "Ah.  The dark-haired, green-eyed press photographer?  Not your type -- Marcus Reeves?  The ex-pap, tailing me on occasion last winter?  You had a no-win lunch date with him in March."  "Sorry?" I blurted, totally shocked he even knew I'd been dating (bloody hell!) and J added "Jeeeez."  S sighed and shrugged one shoulder, flicking a hand as he does, "My brother may have mentioned it, or -- I mentioned it to him?  Oh, my point:  Reeves & this -- other -- photographer --" "Carly," I supplied as J shook his head. "Might find a 'common tongue'," S said.  "Meaning?"  "Meaning!  It would have some, to them. Possibly."  That flippancy was deceptive, I know better.  He was watching me *very* carefully the entire time he acted out that little scene.  I told him, "Well, Marcus was ill, and not a nice job, taking our photo like that, but even so.  He's a very nice person. John, you see, I happened to meet the paparazzi photographer who shot a picture of us with the ring you gave him, you know, that was in the paper?  We ended up on a lunch date, by chance."  J nodded and bit his lips.  "Parsons is looking for used camera equipment around London, you're rubbish at that," S said.  "I am. Well, I'm not contacting Carly, right now," I said.  S's mouth quirked.  "Problem?" he asked.  "Not a pleasant subject, let's leave it there."  (It felt very, very odd.)  "Love, leave it," J put in. I asked, "For the record, have you also seen my photographs, Sherlock?" "Nnno.  A number of semi-erotic photographs of you exist, that I do know."  "Semi-erotic, indeed," I said.  (J coughed.)  "Existed," I added.  "Oh?"  "An arrangement was...."  "Mycroft must have got to them aeons ago, once he'd got nares deep --" "You knew. No, you deduced it all, that a photographer might have snapped a semi-erotic picture or two, for himself, of his lover?"  "You can toss that potato in the sink now, John."  "Huh?"  "It had an area of 26 square inches going by the length of time you've been peeling it?"  "Yeah, well, you want this soup or not?" J shot right back, and actually waved his knife at S.  "Warfarin!" S said, as though he liked the sound of it.  When I made eyes, J cleared his throat, sniffed and picked up another potato, chuckled at something to himself.  And that was that.  Married life, you know.  They're hilarious, both of them are.

After all that I penned (penned, for reasons!) a note on a bit of the beautiful paper S had given me and caught a cab to the Diogenes on the way home from Baker Street.  Kitty will not be pleased, but it was an impulse, I was in a silly mood, and I hope it will make him smile.  He wasn't in so I left it for him to be taken by Andrea.

"Mr. Holmes:  Knowing of your numerous engagements I am nonetheless desirous of your company; please state your preferred hour; should you be doomed to disappoint, kindly offer me the Wise Purpose for which our visit has met delay; I await your answer assur'ed you shall not deny me the pleasure of seeing you; prayers for your health and happiness, &c."

19:37     He did answer after several hours, Andrea had forwarded my message.  Bless her, she is so lovely.

"For reasons which know naught of Wise Purpose, you will accept my regrets.  I am in Oxford.  I miss you bitterly.  MH"

Yes, I lost it.  A bit of a crash.  Of course I don't blame him for being what he is, busy and needed.

21:09     He called a moment ago and asked if I would wait for him in the morning at eleven, to call in the night if I should need to talk for any reason at all.

 

_27\. Jun._

Could be bolder?  Today it was.  Blacker.  It looked fabulous, really, the inside rims black top and bottom, even if it burned a bit when I blinked.  A little grey as well, not much.  Possibly the best yet. I met M at the door in that beautiful gown, I'd not had a chance to wear it lately because of the heat.  He was solemn but greeted me with a kiss and came inside, dropped a briefcase next to my sofa.  Mannerisms speaking of heaviness of the heart, unfortunately.  When I see it, I always worry that it's about the Blight puzzle.  It wasn't.  There'd been a death.

"I'd planned to pay my respects to a professor, who departed shortly after I entered the room.  It's a black day for England, too few are the wiser."  "It was sudden, then?"  "Yes, and I was informed late.  Alexander, this is a sight for.  Well.  However the eyes may be, I cannot even say."  He held me at an arm's length and looked at me.  "Is it all right to receive you like this?  I didn't plan to go anywhere today."  "It's very fine."  He rubbed his face and exhaled before embracing me around the shoulder.  "Shall I make you something?"  "No, stay right here." He put his head against my neck and added, "And may the liveliness in your eyes never fade."  Poor dear, I wanted to kiss him all over, a his hair smelled edible, something herbal, not the usual.  "I'm not certain it's liveliness," I remarked, "I didn't sleep very well.  That sort of night."  "That sort."  I held him and we looked at each other, closely.  "You nicked yourself rather hard this morning?"  "I did."  I kissed a tiny mark on his chin and rubbed my cheek against his.  He ran a hand over my back and led me to the sofa, and I curled up at his side and he chatted until he started to unwind just enough to breathe more deeply, and I took his hand and kissed it, too, and set it on my neck so he would pet me while he talked, and he did.  Soon he was stroking my shoulders and arm, tracing over those beautiful mad branches.  He put his hand on the back of my thigh and I felt his fingers work in between two of the buttons on this beautiful thing, just to brush over me and see what I had on.  I was about to move so he could undo something more, preferably *me*, when there was a loud knock on my front door.  I jumped a foot, and he rolled his eyes.  "Brother mine," he sighed, and said in a whisper, "Alexander, go on and answer or he'll pick the lock."  "Oh, hell, you two.  Go to my bed, I'll receive him at the door." M nodded. "Kitty, I don't think he'll stay, do you?" I said in his ear.  "He's never seen you this way?"  "Made up, no!"  "Mm, no harm done," he murmured, kissing my cheek before standing up with me. He chuckled to himself and retreated to my room, snatching up his briefcase at the last moment and carrying it off with a swagger in that walk of his, imagine.  I went to the door and said against it, "One moment, so sorry! Who's there?"  Irises, hair, oh mercy, I was so made up.  "Alex, me obviously," S said against the door. I cracked the door open a half-foot and greeted him perhaps too exuberantly, holding my robe closed at the throat, though I didn't need to, it was well-tied shut, even if one button in back, well.  He was absolutely floored, and that is rare.  Huge eyes, going from my painted ones, up & down my body.    Me: (sigh) "Hey."  "That's.  I'd."  "Yes, dear?"  "So."  "So?"  "Carly."  "Mhm?"  "Has been introduced.  The pap, him."  "Pap?"  "The pap-pap, the pap in question, for God's sake.  Reeves!" "Oh, that's just fine, I suppose."  "Have I --"  "Yeah, you see, I wasn't expecting to be answering the door, to be honest," I said.  "Clearly."  "Yeah." "Where's...that. He.  Mycroft."  He sort of waved.  I shook my head like an idiot and said, "You know, he was called away to Oxford last night."  (True!  Hell.)  "Okay.  Text me."  "A bit later?  Or, in a moment?"  "Alex!" 

He left in a whirl of uncertainty.  It was hysterically funny, actually & I came into my bedroom staggering after an attack of giggles in my living room, to find kitty on my bed, jacket off, arms behind his head, with sleepy eyes which were nonetheless brightening by the moment.  "Oh my God," I said, wiping my eyes. "Never mind, he's easily disconcerted by beauty," M said, holding out a hand to me and smiling.  Wonderful.  I stretched out next to him and let him unbutton the whole back (worked up, so quickly).  I stripped off the gown and kissed him everywhere I could unbutton him, back.  My favourite of all was a bit later on, sucking each of his bollocks for him and watching him leak all over his freckled left thigh, and it was so good to lick him all and take him down my throat, he needed to come & even then he's always so careful with me, Lord, he's beautiful, book, I just can't believe I have such a wonderful boyfriend.  Sexy and also well-mannered and sweet, grateful, intense, even if laconic today, everything that really matters -- I just can't.  He held me against his chest and petted me and I also got something very nice.  He has remarkable control over his tongue -- languages, overcoming what he has, etcetera, of course he does, I might have guessed -- but chokes easily.  I shouldn't even mention this.  Well, he does.  But I love the way he works me over, it's sinfully good even if not deep, and he cannot bear to let me watch it. But I peek. I must shut up. 

No, I will write this.  I kissed Carly that day, did I not, against my will, but he was kissing me, for all he had.  And tried to draw me in for a kiss again, the other day.  The body does not forget.  And.  Nobody kisses like my kitty, whose emotions and words are so carefully measured, until he gives me his lips and drowns me with affection.  Book, his tongue.  Have you ever wondered, pretty one, why I finish with scenes of lovemaking and don't tell you anything further?  Like about what I have in my fridge?  Or what washing I've (not) got done and folded?  The way my body growls and creaks? The tacky songs I was singing to myself again or the drawings I cannot force out of myself for anything, lately?  Wouldn't you like to know?  You already know?  Wise that you don't share.  

And I ought to go to confession this week.


	67. As we are only men

_27\. Jun., further_

The process of removing layers of eye make-up, dressing and going out wasn't even in the cards until mid-afternoon.  I made a late lunch for him that almost qualified as early tea, and he claimed the timing was typically Russian and told me some funny anecdotes about when he'd been in St. Petersburg, and I had to kiss him.  He couldn't bear to watch the way I slice vegetables with a ceramic knife toward the meat of my palm -- I know, I know.  Steamed kohlrabi and those small yellow squashes, a filet of chicken breast and couscous & some fresh raspberries for dessert.  Which I sort of wanted to feed him on the sofa but couldn't bring myself to ask.  I don't even know why, now.  Or, I do.  I'd asked him if he would want me in the evening and he suddenly connected it for the first time to what I choose to eat.  That I always consider when and what I eat & not only for heart health.  Well, some brothers do that, kitty, we choose our food for love, and?  Women don't ready their bodies, in any way?  Honestly, ginger kitty?  I actually went there: "You can't have forgotten already, the things they &c" and he started to smile but tamped it down.  "Memory serves," he said, and offered to pour our tea.  "It does, fortunately," I told him.  He looked over at me with that "explain" expression that always makes me want to kiss his nose.  "For instance yesterday, it served, to wind me up.  I missed you in the evening, very much, and that's one reason I wanted this morning to be a lot better."  For which he actually thanked me, a bit formally, but he meant it. 

He wanted me to sleep over so I am (in the Blue Room) right now, writing about my own cooking and eye make-up, whatever that adds up to.  Shall we now cleave to the notion of the taikomochi?  Kitty's been in the shower for ages, perhaps tiredness. 

 

_28\. Jun._

Poor kitty, the professor who'd passed away had been a heart patient and it had set off some concerns, mainly over my recent arrhythmia, as M explained over breakfast.  A sort of summary he decided on after my blood had been drawn.  And seeing me feeling so well, and "looking openhearted, hopeful and pretty", had been a relief, though "symptoms cannot be hidden or disregarded, no, Alexander."  Last night I slept in his bed without incident.  Literally -- oh, well.  Apparently I did not keep him awake too much, either, dreams of my Mum.  He was up at 6:30 & ran 3 miles this morning, and again, I did not manage to intercept him in the hallway.  He reminded me that I might call S and make plans for the following day, that he'd be secretly pleased.  After about two hours I made the connection.  Wow!

 

_29\. Jun._

Again, a quiet night in kitty's bed.  He left for the Whitehall office & I went home to change & met S in Covent Garden -- he found me staring blankly at the beginnings of an autumn collection in Zara I didn't want to accept the timing of &c.  He leaned over and said, "A polyamide, off the bar?  You wouldn't dare." 

He promptly stirred things up as only he knows how.  How ironic, that twice in a row!  To start:  it has been one year since that mad soul ambled up to me and asked to talk about "my" paintings, the only bloke I'd ever taken straight home without even knowing his real name, at the mere sight of his lips.  To this day I cannot believe how he got in my head so easily.  I was so angry at him when he backed down.  But a man is helpless in the face of someone like that, in every sense.  I do love that sharp-tongued being, surrogate bad brother, though we didn't 'reminisce' today.  Instead, I congratulated him on another happy month with his officer and he invited me out for a walk from there to Old Compton Street, saying there was something he'd like to show me near Soho Square. "Our last chance for a while to have a stake-out," he explained, so we decided we'd eat sth near-vegan at a place he likes there, etcetera.  Of course I wanted to go.

So we had a funny chat over lunch.  Then it shifted:  "Marcus Reeves owed me a favour, so."  "What do you mean?  You know each other?"  "It's all about the paps you keep.  Look, when a tabloid photographer follows you about that half-heartedly...it means he might actually be useful."  "What sort of favour, dear?"  "He was more than happy to oblige.  Surgery successful, recently back in the...proverbial saddle, oh.  Excellent.  The other one is increasingly...keen."  "Other..one?"  "Mmm.  You won't want to miss this."  (That grin.  I know it well. So I was already edging toward tachycardia, as he nodded his head to indicate I should turn.)  "No, please."  "Observe." 

Essentially, a theatre for one -- such as only S could devise:  Carly and Marcus-the-Pap were sitting side by side at an outdoor table just three yards away, backs to us, drinking alcoholic and fruity concoctions, long straws.  "That's not fair to him."  "Ah, a date isn't fair?  How fair is orchestrating an exit to Chile?  Ah, sustained eye contact, good, yes.  Not long now.  Ah.  Mmm, finish that biscuit, Alex."  I started to object and then he hissed, "Yes!  Now.  Up, come."  S tossed a tenner on the table, ordered me to smile blissfully and literally led me right past the bistro table where Marcus was kissing Carly, the very moment Carly had given in and kissed him back.  They were so lovely together but I was absolutely confused, I almost ran into one of the chairs, mercy.  Marcus felt S's presence, paused & looked up, recognised me & made to look away.  And Carly -- who did not know S outside of the press, nor the fact I'd ever met Marcus, of course, went absolutely white and closed his eyes for a moment and put his hand up like he would be sick.  I nodded my greetings, smiled however I did (not blissfully) and S draped one arm over my shoulder, stuck his tongue out at a camera above the street corner and then pushed me into an alleyway another twenty or so yards down, where I had a breakdown.  Perhaps Carly was having his own, with Marcus, a block away & I don't want to repeat myself, book, but I felt sorry about everything, even if I didn't "need to".

S lit a fag & leaned against a filthy wall in the poor light and kicked rhythmically at a large wad of packing paper near his toe.  "Get it out.  He can't see you here.  Though you'll never be lost in the world again."  "I might actually want it that way," I said.  "You might."  After several minutes he said,  "You aren't remotely as sorry to see Parsons in that position as he was to have you 'happen by'.  The game is up."  "There was no game, dear.  It was just --"  "Aimless sentiment, very gamely."  I told him, "Closure was never, ever my strong point.  Nor his."  "Very true."  "Do you know what I mean when I say that until very, very recently, I always believed that my lack of ability to close off those things, was devotion? Now I think I was afraid nobody would want me, the same."  He sucked in a breath and looked away.  There was a long silence.  Then he said, "His emotional arguments are diluted, see, those are the least controllable variables."  I sniffled into my hands like an idiot.  "Alex.  I'm only going to say this once. About Mycroft."  "Spare me a bit more. Don't."  "No.  You have become a serious danger to my brother and everything he holds dear.  Which is why I decided to help you today."  "What are you saying?"  "I owed him a favour."  He smiled, but there was no cynicism whatsoever.  I couldn't believe it, to be honest.  "Please tell me," I said, "that this means you understand the nature of my feelings for your brother.  That's all I want to hear."  "I do, though admittedly I understand his for you much better." 

That's one of the most beautiful things he's ever said to me.  Better than anything I could have hoped for under our curious (increasingly not-so-curious) circumstances.  Try not to cry your face off.  Try, book.  He didn't keep a wholly-straight face, either.  We are only men (yes, I just listened to the B-side of Dark Side of the Moon, alone, which I shouldn't have, and I had to watch the film of David on the street corner again & I'm a general wreck).

I wish this move were easier on S psychologically.  That all of it was.  He's heading for better things, health first.  

I'm leaving for kitty's in half an hour and I should like to be more presentable, not that he won't see it all on me.  I count on the fact that he also sees how much I am his.

How I ever found such a wonderful man is beyond me (strictly speaking, he found me).  If only I could share it, but it would have to be with S.  With whom else?  And what for?  To hear it said?  To be praised for my good fortune?  If only there was more gratitude and sharing in this world, of the joys we have.  No, not only that -- I wish we had to the ability to share them more without inciting the negative parts of our natures, too.


	68. Life and times of M Lewis H

_30\. Jun._

Farewell "drinkies" instead of tea-time at Baker Street, which is stripped now of personal belongings to where things have an echo.  There were still furnishings but they'd been cleaned (Ola!  S told me.  I must have her come by again). A handful of very nice people, all of whom I'd met or heard of second hand.  To many of them I was identified by "S's best man", as they'd not heard another word about me -- that is, aside from Greg, the DI (S insists on calling him 'Gary' or 'Gill'), who remembered me from Boxing Day. 

19:25     In fact I started feeling like a well-kept secret of the Holmes clan, today.  Anyhow, I attended but did not drink, fortunately for the universe.  The precise opposite was true of my kitty, as I found out later.  Perhaps there was something in the air this afternoon?  You be the judge, book.

19:55     Back, now.  J is very sweet and a bit handsy when tipsy, holding some of the people in the room still by the arm while talking carefully about normal events, but with earnest eyes.  I'm not sure how much he'd already had, but it was the well-aged whiskey I'd brought him, ech.  S could not relax or concentrate, making him look downright shifty as he ground his teeth, particularly around his pathologist friend, a kind lady named Molly, engaged to a medical colleague of J's, who turned up in ribbed leather trousers -- the motor-biking sort -- and shared a broad repertoire of hospital jokes. This is an area I also excel at but I chose not to join in.  I think S's stomach was already hurting, that's how it looked.  He and J shut themselves in their bedroom for about ten minutes and J strode back into the kitchen (he marches indoors) with a generous hard-on and opened the fridge and stared into it, breathing noisily as though he were counting.  When he saw me standing nearby with a cup of mineral water and lemon he interrupted my uncalled-for re-assessment of that DI.  (M knows him well, apparently, and when I shook his hand today and said, "Good afternoon, Gregory, lovely to see you again," his eyes flickered oddly when S supplied, "Alex. My brother's friend."  "Not. Friend?  Huh, sure.  Want a drink?").  Anyhow, a flustered J (also) offered me a glass of wine, apologised and slammed the fridge shut.  "You don't even drink. Sorry."  "Married life," I said, "happens to the best of us, John."  He snorted.  "Sure." I told S when he walked past me, "You go put your husband out of his misery, did you even see, I mean, seriously --?" He told me to shut up.  Even so, within half a minute he'd heeded good counsel & they went out the side door (clamoured out, let's be honest) and upstairs. 

Well, that works on a bloke's mind in not-so-mysterious ways. A bit later I called Rodney, texted M and went to the Diogenes to see, in a word, book, sorry but not sorry, if my ginger kitty was feeling up to what I was. 

He wasn't, entirely -- there was a near-empty tumbler on his desk.  He stood up to receive me with a kiss on the cheek & was in the middle of telling me about London's main reservoir & I caught his lip in my teeth & slipped a hand down between his legs and squeezed his prick while we kissed & he groaned promisingly (embarrassed over "swiftness") so I asked him when I could get all of that & he told me to find "sth longer-playing this time", and he'd come see me, late.  OMG, that was lovely to hear.  He suddenly asked if I have any early Led Zeppelin.  (Note the lack of requests for Gilbert and Sullivan for shagging, S.)  I told him, "Of course I do. All of David's. No more of that drink today."  "Ah.  No."  "A lot of water.  It's warm out and you're in light wool.  In how many hours, kitty?"  "Too many -- to discuss."  Tipsy but very kind.  He'd stopped with that sipping, I don't know why he had to today.

 

_01\. Jul._

A lovely (late) evening with M at my place.  So fascinating to talk to him that way.  Even though my head tells me it was "normal" talk.  Not with him, no.  I'll write more tonight of what I can still remember, because I've been mulling it over all morning.  I'm also upset right now because S & J have just left London for Eastbourne.  S & I are binge texting, will pick this up later on.

20:17     Unfortunately, we will not have the chance to attend a play.

21:05     I was wrong about the play -- I will see "The Taming of the Shrew" at the Royal Shakespeare Co., OMG, but with a guard and not M.  We leave the day after tomorrow for the Stratford meetings.

As S is fond of reminding me, one should mind what is omitted, not what is stated.  And kitty talked a bit last night, in confirmation of facts I'd felt somehow, at least in the shadows of what my kitty does not say.  These were his answers to a dozen or so things I asked after I admitted feeling that I didn't know some things and he told me I might merely ask.  So I merely did:    

\- "Summaries are valuable, whereas process is personal and messy, and should not be shared.  Summaries should be carefully weighed, all extraneous meanings considered, the form chosen.  There is no need for more."  Occam's Razor, a way of being, vetting the world that bombards him with superfluous information. And controlling his tongue.  Next point... 

\- M stammered (involuntary pause more than phoneme repetition) until age 9, when one tutor pointed out that his natural, intense focus could be his best weapon.  Was always tall for his age, was not bullied but orchestrated bullying and 'farmed it out', weakness for sweets & fought weight ineffectively until age 38.  He would gladly trade all his freckles for larger canines.  

\- He had no friends and for lack of an interlocutor, internalised almost everything that mattered to him, objectifying emotion & events & classifying them & ordering them in case he might want to tell someone, quickly.  He has a list of events and topics he has always wanted to discuss with sb but had recently concluded, after talking to me about "The Glass Bead Game", that the rest would bore us both, in fact.    

\- Parents -- oh dear.  Impatient, distant, perfectionist father, accomplished doctor of law.  S has different father, also deceased, who was French, and S resembles him, whereas M resembles their Mum, like I resemble mine -- noses excepted.  Their mother, possibly broken over her unhappy marriage, chose not to treat advanced cervical cancer -- she'd hidden it too long & she died, after a rapid decline, when M was 19, and in the middle of completing his first thesis -- an independent project, history of language use in particular treaties and accords, 4 centuries/7 languages, never published it -- "facile" (???!) at Oxford, in that room he'd taken me to.  He'd begged her to reconsider for S's sake.  She did not.  He'd decided he would never beg anything of anyone again and still carries the weight of that disappointment.  Reminds me of my brother's "turnabout" after we lost Mum.  He literally described that in two sentences, like a glacier.  It hurts him terribly. He does not let things go, and I tried to explain how destructive that is, but it is a matter of his character. 

\- Fencing was an extension of desire "to transpierce inattentive idiots" & M won the vast majority of the tournaments he took part in until he lost interest in it.

\- Work:  advanced rapidly, often approached for dubious favours, which hardened him even more.  Manipulating power alliances and manoeuvring within the political and security milieus, with his brilliance, memory and wit, was and is "easier than making associations" among "goldfish".

\- He is considered one of the top three interrogators in the country, of which he is the only one who has questioned people in 14 languages, even for foreign governments/crowns in secret.  Mercy, that's hot.  God help me, but it is, I can't.

\- He needs a strong attachment to sb before feeling attraction to them. Since this is the reverse of what many people experience, myself included, it has meant circular frustration to kitty, for years.  Other problems from overwork and its isolating effects, low libido, the prostate, and so on, compounded things.  There was little in the way of intimacy, OMG, it's so upsetting to imagine my kitty, left out.  "Come to think of it," I said, "I'm all the more amazed that you ever spoke to me that first time, after having observed me for as long as you did. Or that you sleep with me. Honestly." "Hush," he said. 

\- More recently, there was Rene (a Luxembourgian analyst), an attempt to find a friend at 40 gone terribly wrong; he was the gentleman who died in the French Alps 9 years ago. They were not lovers. Feliciana, six years ago, was a fierce personality prone to flightiness who shared some of his strategic genius.  She suffered from severe migraines and depression, another person whose career he made, briefly in the UN, but she lost her way & that bit we won't talk about. 

\- He wanted to tie himself (relationship-wise!) to a woman, for convenience re. public appearances, and not because of true preference, refer to above regarding puzzles of emotional attachment and attraction.

Postscript:  Adalbert is far "fatter-sounding" to the average British ear than Lewis, which is a nice name!  We've discussed this thoroughly, kitty!!!


	69. That thing divine

_02\. Jul._

I made the mistake of asking S if he'd taken the "melting eye mirror of sex" to Eastbourne, to which he'd texted "Mounted in living rm" & provoked me to write back "TMI did U take mirror to E" which only set off some more remarks that ruined the flow of my morning, so to speak, and my hand has been forced.  Too much information, indeed. 

(Fine.  I have a mirror on the back of my bedroom door, like J did, but it has not seen much of kitty.  Yes, I had to hear all about 'their' mirror when it was installed, S was very pleased with himself, for taking *my* advice about 'transfer of visuals', ahem.)  Lexie.  Stop.  It's the sun, perhaps.  Or just me, it's probably me. 

It's me.  My Scorpionic imagination being what it is, I've got scenarios uncountable involving my ginger kitty in hot stand-up sex.  For which he was clearly preordained, though I believe you're aware.  Once you've (book!) seen him naked, fully erect, there's really no return.  And those suits, waistcoats, shirts, underclothes, golden accoutrements, ties tied with intent:  is it not a figurative sabre lame, all that?  He is among the best-put-together men I've met, yet who would ever know how he is at home:  slim, wiry, quick, with fiery hair in every place I'd want to lick him most, it tickles my tongue so much when he lets me and I love it all.  Oh, kitty, you are delicious.  

Anyhow, I can't believe I managed the latest coup, without A2 seeing a thing, and I will write about it, book, because I am just that immature.  So I went to a Miller & Junie's where they've got exquisite footwear made of all your cousins and catering to longer feet & while A2 was at the door, I asked the kind lady to fit me for wingtip brogues but pack a pair of sz. 43 like hers (slight platforms, retro, long vamps, rounded toes like girls wore from Shelley's in the early 90s).  Lord, how will I wait to show him, I'm dying.  And it was so funny.  S texted a few minutes ago but I couldn't very well send on a snapshot of my legs as they are, in blue stockings and "New 3in. heels to <3 yr bro", now, can I.  They are not as difficult to walk in as one might imagine, but then again, they are stable and thick in front.  Stop, Lexie. 

Unfortunately, my kitty is having a hard week. He is reading piles and piles of things, constantly somewhere in meetings.  Dispersal of bio-active poisons in water appears to be his focus at the moment, as well as a violation of a cease-fire that nobody knows about because secret forces have done sth, I don't know.  (Bio-active poison sounds more like S's area, actually, but M will not hand it over to anyone, saying it is too broad and too secret, even to tell me, and of course I agree.)  I just want him to feel better, soon.  And I should like to see him smile, very broadly.  He needs a lot of love. 

Randall still in India but will be back in four days, and I will continue with him for an event or two later this month, as yet un-established, one a "pleasant" destination for us.  Carly silent.  More on that soon.  We will have to talk about Chile.

There are some other things happening but it's so warm in here, it's hard to think at all.  Beijing.  I must say a few words another time.

_03\. Jul._

We arrived in Stratford in time for a late lunch.  M went to meet a retired epidemiologist/historian &c.  I drew some of the canal boats and did some reading.  I made a cartoon drawing of a Victorian canal boat being followed by a flock of swans -- like in this park, here. They waddle up & hiss to extort people's chips and lollies.  (Oh mercy, speaking of which, one just across the way almost pecked a lapdog's eye for yapping in defence of a hot-dog -- urban swans eat h/ds?).  My boat is manned by bacteria with little moustaches, for my kitty.

22:12     The play tonight was hilarious!  I have a bit of time before M comes back for the night, he rushed out somewhere and left A4 in front of the door, meaning no singing aloud, jumping on the bed, and so on. 

The staging was very modern, a sort of pastiche, including a Vespa driven on-stage and clothing straight out of Grease and Rocky H.P.S. if I'm not mistaken.  Even Anthony (4) laughed to himself several times, which he usually would not.  During intermission I was approached by a shorter gentleman in a polyester-blend jacket and black jeans, balding at the crown, crooked frameless glasses with wide brown side arms, emotionless eyes the colour of M's favoured liquors, who wanted to ask my opinion on something concerning aviation, and I did an S performance:  memorised his face as I assumed the role of awkward amateur blogger/critic & said that actually he might help me write my article by answering several questions, is he in Stratford for the first time?  I pulled a moleskin and pencil out of my jacket pocket, slipped on my glasses & asked what he'd thought of the use of a motor vehicle onstage just prior to a visual reference to recycling, during the scene in Act 3 when Hortensio is out of the room angrily tuning, leading to an apology and moment of total confusion as A4 watched out of the corner of his narrowed eye, just behind that man -- who turned away & disappeared into the crowd.  It was bizarre.  I went & locked myself in a toilet stall, sketched his face & got a bit worked up. 

 

_04\. Jul._

M was stony when he confronted my version with A4's.  "The Latvians have associated you with me, the rest I cannot tell you," he muttered, clapping shut my sketchbook and holding it out to me as he glared at the hotel room door behind me.  "A cue from General Podnieks in Biarritz, who noted our acquaintance?  It needn't be anything too serious, kitty."  "True.  I'm more interested in who has become isolated from information flow this time round, and to what extent, than that particular runner's error.  You'll recall that tactic?  Alive and kicking in some circles.  Wait up but do not leave this room, A4 is outside in the event of emergency, obviously, no communication."  (He kisses very differently when he's full of adrenaline.)  An irritated swing of his umbrella, a last small smile my way, and he was gone.  But he did come back to his taikomochi at 11:30 and was he ever warm, I thought he'd want to fuck me but I finished too fast after all his teasing and petting and kissing & he had my thighs.  I haven't even told him about the shoes that stayed back in London but they were on my mind.  No, this time, I was not adorned in any particular way though I am here as "companion" and not note-taker, negotiator or anything else.  Ironic that someone should speak to me of the aviation issues in NATO while we are at a medical conference. 

 

_05\. Jul._

Something rather serious has happened and I know little more than the fact that American special forces did something on the 30th, when he'd been drinking -- they'd planned to use it as propaganda for their national Independence Day newspaper editions but it has had repercussions.  Genuine knots in my kitty's shoulders.  He refuses to assess without more information.  His nerves are very tight today but v. affectionate to me.

It was so beautiful yesterday evening, I'll never forget that.  He's just gone to an urgent meeting now, and I am reeling, floating, or whatever it is I am doing -- mostly sighing in the direction of the window and wringing my hands, if we look more closely.  And the remains of my breakfast have gone totally cold, because he told me once more before leaving how dear I am to him, a rare repetition of his thoughts that I admit I'd want to hear many times a day, for the rest of my life, and I am happier than I can possibly express here, or anywhere.  Aren't they bizarre, those moments you understand how finite the body is, to express what is *happening* OMG.

Write, Lexie.  Last night, I was getting ready to go to bed with him.  I took off my tie and jacket and was sitting in front of a small mirror and blending something over my face.  I don't usually let him watch it but we'd been talking at length & he stared with some interest while I did it and combed the 'wax' out of my hair.  "You alone go to such lengths," he remarked.  "What do you mean?"  "The effort in what you're doing now, for instance.  No, no.  In fact initially I had in mind the time dedicated to listening."  "It's a pleasure to listen to you, darling."  "-- Or your enjoyment."  "I believe you've been my favourite pastime since the day we met, kitty.  You've found me out."  I painted my lips in the rose balm and started thinking about how good it feels when he takes it all off me again, or I leave it on him, somewhere warm and pulsing, I've got favourite places on him for that.  "You smiled, just now, with such ease," he told me.  "Well.  You're right here, for one."  "Not a clear reason for smiling, to most," he said.  He doesn't normally say things like that about himself, so I wasn't sure how to answer.  I decided on a leap -- "Because my man is admiring me with love in his eyes."  He exhaled and answered, "That, he certainly is."  (I was so surprised.  It was frustrating to be feeling that fragile, just then.  Not what I ever want to be, at all.) "No tears. Alexander, what is it."  "Nerves, it's fine. I don't know how you can stand it."  And he said it, more or less like this:  "I find your demonstrative nature every bit as reassuring of your worth, as your manners, elegance, intelligence, and ethical centring.  I love you.  Don't, don't cry, you'll tire yourself, no.  I might have told you sooner but had convinced myself it was redundant.  Recurring bouts of spinelessness, and they end here."  "Thank you, darling."  "A certain report suggests, Alexander, that these are not times for resignation," he added, eyes dark and intense, it was a bit scary -- "one considers not only how he shall live but why."  I was so shocked trying to absorb all that.  "I love you, too," I said, though by then I had to snatch up a cloth and wipe my eyes and nose so I couldn't see his expression.  And after that we sort of looked at each other in a silence I cannot really describe, so I will leave you to fill it in, based on what you know of his masculinity, force of character, and calm, and also my matchless talent for weeping quietly or not especially quietly, during important moments in my life.  That's exactly what I did, instead of kissing that dear man all the way to my bed, as I'd meant to in the beginning.  I made us some gunpowder green tea with jasmine, which we drank most of on my sofa before he took my face in his hands and gave me his tongue to enjoy and kiss.  And then?  I took him to my room for a blow-job, book -- what do you suppose.  It was brilliant to have him in my mouth again.

The truth:  I was afraid to say it first.  Perhaps I set a poor tone the evening of J's and S's wedding day, suggesting in my first toast to us, that we needn't speak of love (except "discursively", as he mentioned in a 5-word essay).  I'd not thought of that, but he takes all of those things very much into account. 

And he understood why I was so moved to be able to say it back to him.  He seemed relieved, to be able to say it.  (He generally expresses strong emotion as something approximating relief, a matter for another "essay".)

Able.  If only we stood off more often and considered what it means, to be "able" to love and to speak of love.  What has kept us from it?  That would be our essence, right there, wouldn't it?


	70. Bird in the hand

_09\. Jul._

It's been hot and humid again.  There is an inversion layer over London that glows orange in the evenings.  I'm tempted to go out to Eastbourne, actually.  Today S texted that he has just got his trained pigeon flock delivered -- "birds in the hands or rather look for yourself". They ride on his forearms and want to eat out of his palms, he says. And there is one dominant male called Chernobog (black god, or devil!) that sits on his shoulder. S took some photos of them all for me, and my favourite is a selfie where a black pigeon is staring straight into the lens, S's hair frizzing madly from the damp air there, and the crinkles of his eye just visible -- happy.  I showed it to M and he nodded but I could see he had ten instant comments he wasn't letting out. I still have mixed feelings about his choice to move out there, too. I miss the privilege of being able to drop by, say we'll meet soon. 

And I've spoken to kitty about the issue of drones in their vicinity.  Another headache for him regarding the committee's opinions on perimeter security, when one openly called for an analysis of costs in relation to those of trial and incarceration, for the first time.  A threat but a very unpleasant one.

 

_12\. Jul._

"I am aware."  

Kitty's answer to my winner of a topic-opener, "You know I got some shoes recently, darling."  Ha!

I even thought of my Lena when I said it.  I sprang the subject on him because he was so fed-up all morning, it was barely contained.  He is waiting for sth ultra and I infer it's further analyses of that recent military (spec forces) activity, though that would mean a delay, those being as significant as absences of things to S -- they raise all the red flags.  So he has been moody and absorbed.  

"As implied", he was in my reading glasses, sifting through piles of work that other people and committees should have done properly to begin with and talking it through in a desultory fashion.  I told him, "And I chose something practical, see."  To tease him I put my fists out side by side as though he were to choose which hand, for a hidden prize.  He narrowed his eyes over the glasses frames at them (his razor-like grey eyes are in such contrast to the warm mottled patterns, very interesting pairing) and frowned, possibly at the lack of sweeties, but most likely because he (wouldn't bother to) fathom why I was interrupting a highly-practical perusal of a voting reform proposal from one of the former-Russian republics.  (Stretch lower back muscles casually, fold hands on lap priggishly.  Ha.)  "Explain," he said.  I shrugged and he sighed impatiently.  "Oh, kitty.  All the better to hold my feet over my head, for instance."  What a glare.  "Heeled!" he stated as if daring me to deny it.  "Oh, yes.  Only a little, three-quarters of an inch in front, three inches in back.  Very stable, I've no real trouble walking about in them, I used to as a child, a bit, to annoy my brother."  True story, yes.  Then M set his folder onto his desk with a bit too much care.  "Ah."  "I'm no expert -- and I can't ask your brother without setting off a flurry of questions.  Are scratches on a bloke's back from high-heeled shoes distinct from other sorts, ginger kitty?"  "Yyyyes, they are."  "Incriminating, then?"  "*Implicating*, perhaps you mean."  "I see.  I can see why.  Then, well.  You could have me standing."  "Standing," he murmured.  "You know, you're --" (bite lip, run eyes over his chest) "I was thinking we could try."  (He sort of coughed quietly and set down his pen, too.)  "If I were on my toes to start.  And I've always wanted to do that.  Haven't you ever wanted to come up from behind and -- standing up?  I think you have."  (That got him, he was speechless.  Of course he'd wanted to, that blue silk gown, honestly.)  "And you'd hold my hips so I wouldn't lose my footing.  I could dress for you, even a little nightshirt if you wanted."  "Really."  "Or you could just take off my suit and push these black silk pants aside."  "Black, then."  "And get in me, just have me right then."  "Alexander..."  "While I'm trying to make up in front of my mirror on my bedroom door, not even let me finish up for bed, just bend me over a little, very little, not much, you'd not need to, I'd move for you, and you'd kiss my neck, Lord yes, that's what you'd do, I know you.  You're the best at those hot licks, and you could time it just so, while you're deepest, tongue me somewhere I love, long wet stripes over my shoulders, you know I adore it, or you could pull my hair with your teeth, not too hard, though.  You wouldn't mind all that much, if I had to touch myself, because I would have to, seeing that.  But if you could watch it all in my mirror, the one on the back of my bedroom door, would it be all right?"  "Al-ex-an-der."  "See what I want, while you hit me right where I needed it every time, and held me up so I wouldn't feel dizzy, you know how mad it gets, how I lose control when you make love to me from behind, and this would be a fantasy come true, as well, I'd go so mad."  "Ahmhm." Poor kitty.  "For you too?  Well, of course I needed shoes with little heels.  It's been so hot or I'd have gone for boots.  The stockings you gave me are so pretty with them.  You know, I went out just to get them for us, because I couldn't push it out of my mind, you there.  You, all in my arse, hugging me from behind and stroking my whole body, getting me so hard, so perfect.  Because of the mirror, you know.  It's all because of the mirror.  A2 didn't see anything, don't worry.  Even you didn't know, did you.  Perhaps I ought to have surprised you?  And not told you all these things?"  "Nnnnnn."  "I'm going home.  Will you come see me tonight?"  (Desire can look murderous, after all, OMG, what a face he made, it was hysterically funny.)  "I will."  "What were you just reading about, kitty?  Voting, where?"

Later on.  His hard-on, the sounds in his long throat when he started to kiss me, too wound up to talk & perfectly ready, to have me. He tormented me right back for those shoes, which he loved, I'd not even imagined how excited he'd be. Rubbing my hole with precome for ages, because he could. He held me, ran a palm over my balls and his tongue over my neck while he pushed in, so good -- and kept rolling my balls through his fingers while he thrusted up and I reached back & held his arse to feel that flex -- I thought I would faint, really and again when he said he'd wanted to, the secret of the gown, not so secret after all, and rasped into my ear, so manly and bad, how he would gladly dress me every day another way. In fine suits and shirts and ties as well as fine nightshirts and stockings. And as for the gown I should pair it with the heels some night, and it will mean I am as ready beneath it for him as tonight, and can be unbuttoned and slowly taken the same way.  Hearing that in his voice, obviously I came like a shot, wrecked the calm of the mirror once and for all, and the clench got him and he came in me, it was so damned hot, oh mercy, he is incredible, I knew it would be.  I wish he would tell me more openly what he likes because when I manage to guess it is so brilliant to see how pleased he is.  

We finished the evening on my sofa, me in soft clothes (hurt a bit this time, well worth it, even the lecture/M's chagrin over nothing, really, he was so upset, needlessly, he'd not been rough in the least, just not my angle, book, it's better most other ways -- but OMG how it looked, my white shirt unbuttoned, stockings and those shoes, impaled on that truly engorged, hot prick, it was beyond, his mouth on my nape, where I love it, what a scene -- I will dream of it) and he was holding me on his chest, my favourite place in the world to rest my head, where I had whorls of auburn hair to pet & freckles.  He was kissing my fingers while he talked to me about an unusual microdot found in an attached photograph from an email, traced to Morocco -- that I shouldn't write down anything more about.  He smells so manly and I couldn't stop myself from having a taste.  We'd scrubbed down and I took the chance to kiss his shoulders and under his arms as well, which tickled him to death, it was funny.  It was good to hear him laugh, he's been so tense. 

From where I was I could barely look up but I could see canines and those lines once carved by frowns being forced to reconsider their paths.  I love them all.  Emptiness carves potential for very deep love, I am convinced of that.  How stunning when it surfaces, those moments that have come much further than most, light from distant corners, no longer weak -- arrived & glimmering.  I told him how glad I am to be there because I'd just seen something very special but I didn't have a chance to say what, because he'd taken my face and brought my lips to his again.


	71. In the heat of the day

_13\. Jul._

Kitty is still fretting about my body, perhaps because he cannot forget any better than I can how it was and would have more if I weren't going through a spot of more frequent arrhythmia, which is wearing on us both.  He is so sweet, though -- he is trying to stop himself, help me, and stay focused and all that care flashes out in unexpected ways, a bit at a time.  Then he is embarrassed.  I told him to say and do what he needs to.  It's all good, it really is.

We still sleep, in a manner of speaking, in his bed, even if it is not working for him at all.  I keep telling him I can go to the other bed or merely stay at home, but he won't have it.  His shoulder was hurting this morning, probably from not moving when I've draped myself over him like a tree sloth but I cannot stay in my lane at night -- who could?  He's divine even in those pajamas I really wish he'd go without, and smells fantastic, like residual cedar from soaps and cologne water and the bay in a tonic he cleans his face with in the evenings.  His pillow, OMG.  But mostly I wake up alone.  He is running those miles in the mornings. 

We've had three happy months as of yesterday.  But then there was the arrhythmia.  Knackered by noon & didn't go home in the meantime as M wanted the nurse with me in the house.  He took his breakfast upstairs and stayed by longer than he'd planned this morning so we could talk.  There is plenty to say but not here, until I've processed it better.

I should mention I will see Randall tomorrow.  Am I even alert enough? 

 

_14\. Jul._

Earlier, Randall for three hours.  Back from a long funeral event and family reunion -- he's lost a great aunt, who'd lived to be 97 years old.  We appear to have sth in common, she was a bit like my Auntie Claudia to me. 

Since that night with the Dark Side of the Moon I've kept the console uncluttered and the hum of it when I switch it on never ceases to remind me of evenings with Henry and Claudia.  Who'd I have become without them both?  Consider the burden of taking in a chatty, fickle, over-dramatic twelve year old with awful teeth who sings to himself, is constantly faint, coughing or far worse?  I will leave this subject as I am already a bit on the over-associative side today, to the detriment of nearly every rhythm in my body.  (The INR is also irregular again -- the monitoring schedule, in general, is bothering me.  I will probably get a machine and do all the pricks -- finger pricks, naughty book).  In fact I am doing the denial thing when the risk of thrombosis is for life.  M claims I don't take it "quite seriously enough".  More than I am ready for -- vain of me.  It could be far worse.  You see, every click of the valve damages red cells which then drift about.  No, I do not forget that's going on, how can one!

19:33     Anyhow, it's later.  Randall and I were working on conflict resolution and so-called paradigm shift in participants' viewpoints and using it for manipulation.  I suppose I wasn't as receptive to that idea as he'd wanted and he told me to consider it a lesson in recognising it in others.  That I can do.

21:40     Kitty in the shower.  Dear volume.  Notice my scattered thoughts (as though I need to point to them).  In fact sth has happened in our world.  If I let my mind rest on it I really cannot handle it.  You will keep my secret, as kitty says nobody is likely to reach this, ever.  The news.  The delayed report he'd wanted.  He did get it and is confronting it with various other photographs, accounts, intelligence.  He is convinced the special forces encountered a dummy or secondary site, though nobody else has put forward that (conclusion). 

I will back up.  At the end of June, I think I mentioned there was an attempt by our allies to eradicate a site.  It was a laboratory facility in Syr., heavily guarded and cloaked, mainly underground.  The equipment was almost completely destroyed and what remained could hardly be analysed because of incendiary explosives.  M believes the state of the equipment (pieced together) indicates it was not used frequently/long, that some of it was dated and would not serve the purpose assumed in the reports, &c for the development of particular bio-active toxins for slow release in water (?)  Moreover, X, he says, chose disproportionally brutal methods of interrogation which spoilt chances of retrieval (memory erasure, so complete as to appear purposeful). 

Focus, Lexie.  There were scientists on site, heavily guarded, several casualties among them + guards, an international team though none European (I should say, none were from EU member states, that is more accurate).  The methods chosen during interrog. like those for hardened fighters, inhumanly brutal and repugnant -- anal feedings, electrical prods, sleep deprivation and waterboarding -- imagine the unimaginable, which is disgustingly true:  they wrecked those workers.  One had a minor cardiac event, another has lost faculties of speech -- aphasia.  M says cerebral events are common under torture and they might have achieved their aims otherwise, I won't go into detail, there.  In the end, shall we say that the scant information gathered is absolutely useless & the endeavour has essentially ruined several lines of intelligence -- to discover the location of any 'real' laboratory, M says, setting in motion any number of reactions & changing existing signalling, etcetera, helping terrorists know what is being sought out, more than preventing anything, at all.  Our top military strategists and intelligence chiefs are furious and ties are strained but it hasn't been stated anywhere (they establish the depth of their fury and concern based on M's analyses, of course, and he is conservative for now).  He cannot help but bring that into his everyday life and eats, drinks, glares, reads with that failure boiling in him, always. 

He looks at me with darker blankness when I talk and were it only decipherable...mercy. 

 

_16\. Jul._

A meeting on rationalisation at one of the agencies but I could not go with M this time due to tiredness and dizziness.  London is having a record-breaking heat wave at this point.  M wanted to send me to York to a nice place he knows there but it didn't sound feasible in the end and I refused.  Later on he admitted he'd find it difficult to part with me.  I couldn't stop kissing him for that, really.

Yesterday I had an appt. w/ cardio in the morning and M brought his work home at three, we talked & he read some things aloud, and at five we took tea at his table downstairs.  Where he gets these lovely teas is beyond me.  I think he mentioned once that he has an acquaintance in the chamber of trade with Hong Kong.  At seven-thirty, just before dinner, I caught him by the arm in the hallway near his bedroom door  and held him in place, and looked at him -- he looked so handsome today, and I couldn't resist -- and he stared right back into my eyes until it was so hot we grabbed each other and kissed like mad.  He ran his hands down my sides as though I were about to be undressed there and dinner left to steam and cool -- the reverse of me.  With difficulty he reminded me I must go and eat and we'd start it all again -- and he hoped I'd concede to standing in for his dessert.  I started to laugh, and did concede, oh yes. 

He unravelled me with his tongue later on.  I asked for his thighs but I wanted him & he knew damned well how badly, even before I started.  I was holding him by the chest and I stopped moving and touched him instead and told him some naughty ideas of mine about the balcony in that room in Oxford until he was so hard.  I sucked him a bit but he wanted more touches instead and kissed me very gently, in total contrast to what was happening lower. 

Later when we were getting ready to go to sleep he told me, even though I was in the middle of brushing my teeth, that I'm exceedingly charming -- I nearly choked, laughing, sending all grace out of the window but when we were in the eerie dark with the streaks of glowing night-light over the floor, on his pillow together, he sucked my lips and tongue with so much attention it started to hurt somehow. He knows me so well, he'd already put his arms around me by the time it got to me.  I don't what had come over us both but he was bordering on melancholy and I was moved by every single way he was touching me, the sort of mix-up anxiety funds the heart. 

Something else: I need to present the matter of Chile to Carly. An assignment, as it were. I told kitty that I wasn't sure how to start. Kitty grumbled, "If anyone could convince him, it would be you, I suppose." I finally fell apart and he worked out why rather easily. 

Later on, he told me (short of saying "don't worry your pretty head") that he does not need a mirror for his cares but only my warmth, that it is not my role to be concerned over others' errors, however foolish -- to leave it all to him, however difficult that may be given my nature, &c. 

 

_17\. Jul._

"We're sort of, but.  The chemistry's off.  Lexie, did you even get my message?"  "No.  When would that have been?"  "About a week ago, I came by and your bloody guard wouldn't let me ring, and said you were out.  Did he tell you?"  (No, he did not.  A1 is still antsy after the matter of the roses and won't do anything like pass messages.)   

Today I was reminded that Carly thinks M has me in a cage.  S has said nearly the same thing, has he not.  (He has stopped making those remarks -- today we were texting and I got another funny picture of his pigeon Chernobog-of-the-evil-side-eye, who sits proudly, neck craned, and fancies he's a parrot.)  Why does my relationship with M not feel cage-like in any way?  Is it because I have never paced its edges?  Or is it because the 'cage' is inside of us, if anywhere?  

I'll start over.  I was asked (I need an erasable pen) by kitty to present Carly with a file regarding Chile.  I hadn't been in touch with him aside from a transactional text or two about products and a name.  We met at the V&A where there's a retrospective of prints he wanted to see.  I adore the ornate interior tiles and colours in the cafe and I'd not been for years, the last time being with -- him, as well.  I'd asked him there, we'd looked at some of my sketches and gone -- forth. Forthwith. Another life.

To be honest I am all in and I'll have to write more on this tomorrow.  It went badly and I don't know how to move forward on this.  I need to think, above all.


	72. Man a non-sequitur

_18\. Jul._

"Anti-stagnation efforts on competence implications in military cooperation entail economic, operational and political tasks..."  (Kitty on the phone, making faces, me zipping him as quietly as possible and knotting a tie for him around his arms while the other one ran on, hard to describe but it was hilarious.)  "No!  Gains are proportional but the present collaboration designs neglect scaling.  Where?  Don't be ridiculous, in role designation." This is about where I was slipping in his cuff buttons and he let his tongue hang out. I coughed down a laugh and he shook his head. "And co-development agreements.  Olsen and Terrence.  Yes, naturally.  Red four-tiered simulations!  Where are the anterior modules for the 76-AG scalability priority schedules!" (Eye rolls worthy of a Holmes.)  

Someone is about to fly to Moldavia and M appears on the edge of flying there, on nerves alone.  This after "an abbreviated" five and a half miles, fast, on his "hamster run".  Defence priorities.  Fiery this morning.  Awfully sexy.  (I can't go out with him in this heat, they reckon it will reach 92 this afternoon, very high humidity this week, or he'd take me to the MOD.)

So he has just left but not before crawling over me in bed for a gorgeous kiss, OMG, the one that knocked you aside, book, and bent your page right in half --------------------> right there, as he took my chin in his right palm and opened my lips with his thumb. And told me I'm very dear to him, and slipped his tongue into my mouth when I smiled.  It was deep and went straight between my legs, Lord I still feel how hot his breath was against the roof of my mouth.  He is now downstairs, leaving me in his bed, bad man.  I told him, I shouldn't be held responsible for what happens just after he leaves.  If he'd given me another fifteen minutes, honestly, I'd have gladly finished what we could not last night.

So I'm going home.  I'll pick this up later.

13:15     Shopping, delivered in this awful heat.  I might have thought that through.  Texting with S.  J was starting a new job this morning and was worked up & they had a little argument about S taking Chernobog into the bathroom for a piss during J's shower (??) but they're quite happy there, so far.  That's good to hear.  Apparently J has bought S a beautiful deep bathtub, which will arrive in a few days. OMG, that would be lovely.  M in one of those, lathering his chest while I stayed by and sucked his toes for him.  

15:39     M does not mention Carly.  Pointedly.  A continuation of that day in my living room, with the pen drive, and his utter disassociation.  It's as though Carly has amounted to a non-sequitur in that stream of reports, files, tables, numbers.  He wants it resolved, and C removed, sent back across the world as suddenly as he'd arrived.

I have been left to (re)present the Chile file, which contains details on relocation. Add the way C proceeds with men.   He is doing it with the ex-pap photographer, Marcus, a bit (from what I can tell) the diff. being that Marcus isn't madly into C.  I don't even want to know these things.  It came up in passing when we were at the V&A:  they are meeting each other, despite the awkward start.  C is vacillating about the time & place of destination-the-next -- I'd asked about time-frame, not expecting to hear that he fancies staying on in London. For the time being.  So.  He explained that he might take on a contract here.  He's been in touch with Abram, as well.  Does not question why the solicitor should take such interest in him, assuming his talent is the sole factor here. Ech, I wish M hadn't told me about Abram's paternity -- he might have explained why he felt I should know sth that could bring total disorder to C's life.  It's not an advantage!  Anyhow. C is not keen on moving to Chile.  He said it doesn't fit, yet.  I asked, "Why stay on in London, when you've always had an almost allergic distaste for it, before?"  He told me, "Sometimes I can't find the sweet light anywhere, babe, it's not just England, it's me, the path."

(I finally told him that I won't have him call me that, leaving out the way it chips at me when he uses our old -- anything -- it literally makes me salivate, the sort that starts at the base of the back of the tongue and makes me tearful at the same time -- which runs into my nose -- why am I mentioning this -- hell!!)

Fine, let us dissect the man once again -- where we are at, a statement of the present, since he plans to stay.  Do not imagine, lovely volume, that it gives me pleasure or a feeling of control to do so.  When we met (re-met, were introduced formally) I'd just been fooling about with N and E, or they'd each fooled me, more like it.  And I wanted a real connection. 

Carly's quiet tenacity is fundamental to who he is and what he does -- he has to be assertive, discerning and anticipatory.  He is a Buddhist in a constant battle with the damaged self, the enormous ego, accepting/crafting the path.  I believe I have mentioned before that I once appreciated it as a quality in him -- among people who strive forward at great price.  Perhaps that is the way forward, in what semblance of a friendship we have:  appreciating it once again, not taking it personally anymore as what brought me down so hard.  It's just what he is, and the fact I can hardly look at it without getting upset -- is pathetic.  I take it to heart. 

Truth -- C was receptive because he had a slot of four months -- things got real in the mean -- my mistake.  Mistake?  Isn't it troubling to consider love a mistake?  Ever? 

My heart is going mad again, blast this.  I cannot stand up from this chair without seeing coloured patches.  My phone is in the other room, but is there anything to say?  This is where we are, then?  Seated?  Waiting?  Counting the signs before a tip-over.  The blood is thin.  3.2.  What else shall I do for you!  What!

17:05     My ginger kitty is among those who push forward at enormous price, of course, having sublimated or subjugated so many of his needs in favour of giving space to let his intellectual powers fly. 

I'd like to explore this but I cannot think.  Damn this, it's so fluttery all through my left side, fucking hell, it's been four hours of this.

Carly, too, can follow through on a line of thought or goal he's set such that everyone falls aside -- carnage in his wake.  He is not any crueler than M -- he just doesn't calculate space for slowing down to walk alongside anyone else for long. 

Motivators -- power, fame, money.  Or personal vision.  Activism.  I don't know.

I have power, handed to me.  Fame, too, if I were any good at understanding it.  I'm not.  Money, yes, I am bloody comfortable.  My personal vision is presently impaired.  I must work and yet I have a block.  The comfortable can afford to block themselves in, can they not.  Pathetic.  Must regain some perspective.  I've not been to church, lately, in this heat, and I feel heavy over it.  Lord, forgive this vanity, this weakness. 

Have I come a full circle yet?  (C even told me that I speak in a circular way, "verbally embracing" situations with little structure, determined by my own emotional boundaries at a given time.  Damn it.)

 

_19\. Jul._

Re. the rest:  it was nearly six-thirty and I called for Rodney.  He had a card for me from kitty, signed with a flourish of a dove, that said he would see me closer to nine, to eat dinner at his house alone (it would be there for me, to be served between seven & seven thirty) and he would look forward to seeing me, then.

He arrived at a quarter to nine, indeed, and approached me at his hearth, where I was reading in one of the leather chairs.  The flames were outdoors -- a scorching evening, blood red sunset, no fire in the room imaginable.  Aside from him.  The last light was streaming in at a mad angle, and he was hellishly lit in it to an advantage he didn't even need.  So handsome.  He leaned over me and kissed my forehead.  I pulled him to my mouth and nipped his lip and greeted him with more of a noise than a real word.  He'd been drinking cognac, or sth similar.  I stood up and tossed my book on the chair ("The 39 Steps", a v. good one, recommended by S, a favourite of J's).  "I might have marked my place, ah well," I muttered, and he lowered his voice and said, "'Only for a second, but it was enough to make my heart jump'."  "What?" I blurted out.  "'I had never seen the great man before, and he had never seen me....'"  I started to laugh and put my arm around his shoulder.  "How did you know, darling?"  "'But in that fraction of time'," he continued, staring at me from rather close up, "'something sprang into his eyes, and that something was recognition. You can't mistake it. It is a flicker, a spark of light, a minute shade of difference which means...one thing and one thing only'.  You were near the end of chapter eight, I perceived, and fairly trembling with excitement, Alexander, it had to be that particular passage."  (Kitty imprints a page at once, if he wants to -- and I was dropping the blasted thing, and he was tipsy...anyhow.  That is him.)  "You frighten me," I told him.  "No, you are not frightened in the least.  Pity, it never works on you."  Then he actually grinned at me, and moved to go upstairs so I said, "Take me along?"  "Hmm?" he said, and I loosened his tie a bit and kissed his chin.  "I'm -- ah."  "I want to do it, like in the morning.  I like your buttons and zips."  "Is it any wonder," my ginger kitty said and his eyes were so dark, "That I've thought of you constantly for the last thirteen hours?"  "Have you?  Was I kissing you, in those thoughts?"  "Frequently."  I took his wrist.  "And, was I taking off all these bits and rolling your sleeves?"  "I -- no."  "Rinsing your face, drying your hands, kissing your fingertips?"  "No, you...weren't...."  (Here I could see he was letting the drinks take him along a bit.)  "Encouraging you to change your trousers for something lighter, asking you to leave off the pants, ultimately the trousers as well?  Because why are we in any hurry?  Are we in a hurry?  Are you hungry?"  He was smiling so much, by then.  "I am."  "But.  Was I on my knees?"  "Yes."  "Holding you in my hand, licking you, you know where, my favourite bit, there, on the underside, that one freckle?  Kitty."  "Yes, you absolutely were."  "Take me upstairs." 

He did.  He doesn't like to have everything done for him as much as I enjoy doing it, but he let himself be kissed and petted, and some of it I managed to do, like his sleeves, while kissing his face, and he talked the entire time about what he had been doing at work, and at his Whitehall office, while I tended to the rest.  He was tipsy, which may be why he conceded to that -- I thought it was hot, to take off part of what I'd put on him that morning.  But he was on another wavelength.  I asked him gently why he'd been drinking, and he said a guest, who'd left with an escort, too intoxicated to walk unaided.  He couldn't keep it up in my hand but was purring against my lips and kissing me with so much energy and again while changing his trousers for cotton, he leaned over and Frenched me like he wanted to go straight down on the bed for a little shag.  I was tempted to try to start sth but the man was hungry, after all.  We went downstairs for his supper and when I was certain we were alone again, I was teasing him under the tabletop with my toes on his thighs until he nodded that we might go.  We moved toward the hearth so I could get my book.  "Your chairs," I said, holding his arm, "keep us apart, and as much as I like this room, only the carpet has ever understood us."  He started to add something to that, thought twice, and snickered.  "I'll work on it, shall I?" he said, and took my hand.  He practically does not do it, even in bed when I would want it, so I was excited at first, but he gripped it like a clamp and I may have flinched.  He suddenly understood what he'd done and started a string of light kisses from my palm, which was so arousing while slow and apologetic.

When we were in bed and he'd taken off my clothes, we talked for a long time and I petted his hip & thigh.  If I'd not had a bad morning and early afternoon I might have tried more.  But looking into his eyes, I got over that. The trust in stretching out naked, warm, flaccid, next to me, giving me a hand, when he must have known how much I'd have liked to turn him over.  I've never had a virgin, book, and there are things that require care, and.  And.  It's been a long time.  Stop, Lexie.  Gracious Mother, this is all turning me on, again.


	73. Brewing ideas

_25\. Jul._

With the global political arena and so-called sub-arenas being as dull as they are (OMG I shouldn't joke, it's horrifying) I suppose my subconscious decided I might enjoy a scare.  I couldn't find this book for a few days because it had slipped between my bed and the wall to where I could not see it.  Ola happened across it yesterday while cleaning for me and I was pleased to be able to tell kitty that indeed I'd *not* lost it (meaning the book).  He'd already ruled out theft or true loss.  Well, you know best, that the heat wave broke in a series of northerly storms & I'd been wanting to write and couldn't because of a pounding headache.  I'd drifted off and when Rodney rang for me I was brought out of a bizarre dream of rushing through Vienna with a rifle and a bouquet of red roses in my arms, the petals flying off in my haste (which upset me more than holding the weapon -- proof it was a nightmare), and you, my dear, had already slipped through my fingertips.  Your silence, while inconvenient in this case, is still of a worth that does not fit within any cover!  At least I've had some valuable practice at dreading loss.  Ech, shall we say my sense of humour is off today, more than usual.

What has happened in the meantime?  A trip to the barber's, at last.  Nights in my ginger kitty's bed, each more delicious.  A nice supper at my place yesterday evening with kitty -- grilled pullet & vegetable strips in a sort of warm quinoa salad.  A meal that ended on my sofa in the dark, with kisses and secrets and a long, intense handjob to both live and die for.  I love him so much it's never describable when I get a page in front of me.  What else?  Sleepiness right now due to a vivid dream of Mum during which I woke kitty -- no sense in detailing it, here, when I cannot forget it.  But he is less controlled in the dark, in the early hours of the morning, shaken out of a deep sleep, close to four.  I won't forget the way we spent it in each other's arms, until his clock buzzed under his pillow and he left me to go running. 

I am attempting to work on the frieze after a ridiculously long break and you may be envious, book, I find I want to draw more than write out my feelings.  "Wrath" is next.  Not that I'm feeding you ideas.

Can you tell I've not spoken to S lately?  I'll need to Skype him later on for a certain opinion.  On the ex-pap Marcus Reeves, while we're pretending to be explicating things. 

Randall this morning at eleven.  He has given me an idea.  It concerns the remainder of David's fortune, my present relationship to/with Carly, and a way forward that gives me hope.  The instrument?  A change to my will, dear volume.  I must speak to Abram as I am utterly clueless how it would even work because it must be able to function without my direct involvement for reasons.  I've made an appointment for the day after tomorrow (28th).  It started with a claim by Randall that an under-employed form of manipulation in X circles (though widely used in business) is to give tasks which are consumptive in nature and diffuse the energy which would be used for resistance and/or individual progress.  He pointed out several destructive factors of organised individual/creative work which is anything but.  Since art is in the soul.  In the eye.  Of course I would not wish to diffuse Carly's talents.  In fact, he is one of England's finest "photojs" ? at the moment and there is no context for me to absorb his energies.  But.  The eye suffers in tandem with the heart.  He lost his "eyes" in Bangkok and his new ones lie about unused.  (I might enlist Marcus in my idea as well.  And I might be providing C with arguments to stay on in London.  I will talk to S about MR's character....  Mercy.) 

 

_26\. Jul._

Today it went like this:  "There must be a way to reform that internal terror-alert-level system, it's unjust and uneven, kitty."  "Changes system wide carry the risk of alert failure during the reform period."  "The same sort of excuse one uses when delaying a haircut or a change of wallpaper."  "Alexander...."  "Change in general does not fail when it comes early.  That is called anticipatory change and it is risk-laden, but change fails most when it comes too late!"  This was part of a far longer discussion in M's office, the whole of which I won't bother to write down as it is typical work-banter, but this part he seemed to take personally, which was surprising.  I wish I knew why.  He said, rather sharply, "Explain further."  " Kitty."  "Well, you are justified in your thinking," he said, and went cold, as he added, "Consult your nearest philosopher on time-sensitivity, I've mentioned this before as a pernicious force in decision making. Or more exactly, in modelling lines of 'choice'."  "Speaking of your brother, the anti-drone technology for their home, kitty."  "Noted, for the fourth time, or the seventh by implication."  "One should be consistent.  Lines of choice, you know."  "Yes."  "I'd like to go down and visit them in Eastbourne for a weekend."  "When?"  "Once the device is in place, of course."  (Long, hissing sigh -- his lung capacity is excellent, I must say.  And he's laid off the fags.)

It took him another half-hour or so to come round.  "May I see it?" he asked, gesturing at my sketchbook from behind his desk.  I held up a doodle that will probably become a side detail in "Wrath".  He looked at it, raised a brow and said, "Another opportunity for you.  I may as well tell you now, I've no idea when I'll be home tonight.  Burma, and now a certain riveter employed in security at the Vladivostok airport."  He reached over to the corner of his desk where he puts (I've noticed) nicer things, such as amusing interruptions or sweeties from faraway places.  "Here you are," he said, handing me a heavy, white envelope.   A request for a portrait from HRH -- I couldn't/can't even believe it, much less write it down.  "Alexander," he said gently, as I shrieked into my hands, "were I a better painter I'd be tempted to capture your shock in confronting the consequences of your own talents --"  He crossed his arms and smiled at me.  "You'll accept, of course.  Shall I call it in, today?"  Well.  'Internal screaming' doesn't embody things. "Yes!!!" 

 

_27\. Jul._

Now that it's not so hot one can stand to dress.  Then he looks over at his boyfriend and he wonders 1) what he'd even been thinking by dressing & 2) why that man had bothered with all those layers and things -- they interfere with every good idea I've got. 

Today M had another surprise for me.  He has chosen a sofa for his living room.  At first glance, made for our longish legs, though it is not the legs which lie behind the choice.  Lexie, stop.

"I chose what seemed facilitative to the flow of the room," M said, casually.  Oh, yes, 'flow'.  And I said, "Practical and pretty, firm but with give.  Leather, very soft.  Warms to the touch quickly."  "Yes."  "Ultimate shagging place, darling, well chosen.  Is your cook still in?  She is?"  I put my arm around his shoulder and watched his cheeks burn.  Soon his lips found a sweet spot on my neck and he took my cheek in his hand, kissed me squarely on the mouth and asked -- as he let me feel him against my thigh, pressing at me with the blunt of his prick, mercy -- if he could make love to me, another evening, there.  I wrapped my arms around his neck and said he could, and asked how he imagined my feet -- in what, and where.  He said, eyes gleaming, that he could hardly bear the thought of waiting ahead.  To which I told him he needn't wait ahead, and we went upstairs rather quickly.  When I was in his lap, jerking the last of him, my stomach covered in him, his cheek on my chest as he tried to catch his breath,  I asked him (horny as all hell), "and what about you?"  "Very fine, thank you."  "No, I mean, when shall I make love to *you* down there, bad one?"  "I've no idea," he replied, shrugging rather languidly (so sweet, he was feeling good) and biting at his lips as he considered a better answer and I cleaned my skin.  "Meanwhile, I have plenty of ideas," I told him.  "You are remarkable that way," he said, and kissed my neck.  "Oh, I've no doubt you are remarkable, that way. Too.  Ginger kitty. Imagine."  I looked down at him, grinning & reminding myself not to back off, that I want to know, after all, don't I.  And he said, "How should I imagine it?" 

(Very good question, of course.  The ultimate question.)  Because I know he does.  "How do you, actually?" I asked. "As a certain averaging of observations, for one," he said, and stroked my hair.  "Talk to me, kitty, really."  "Your pleasure is thought-provoking."  "Was that a five-word essay?"  "It could be. Alexander, the treatments I had were dreadful."  "I believe you, dear."  "May you never experience anything of the sort. Mortifying," he added, "and one has no idea when it will stop or if he might enjoy anything more."  "Well.  Ever since you gave me your medical records and warned me off, I've had the most fantastic sex."  OMG, he stared and didn't even manage to answer.  Well.  We all love to hear such things and there aren't many good ripostes, are there?  "Ginger kitty?"  "Apparently?"  "Is there anything more?  Aside from the pain, which *is* real, at first.  How do you imagine me?  Because you must know I don't consider being *yours* a passive role, shall we say."  "No, it isn't.  You know how to take pleasure."  It slipped out just then -- I said, "I love you."  And it was as though I'd knocked his breath from his chest.  He found it again in our kisses -- he was so happy, his hands all over me, his lips searching over mine, my face, and chin, neck.  I would want it to start exactly that way, and I told him so.

He'll be back to bed any time, now.  He got a call from Brussels. Lord, it's nearly eleven. And he has been speaking mostly in numbers from what I can hear.


	74. Fate and see

_28\. Jul._

So much to say.  I left off at the call M got -- code after code about NATO airspace policies, ongoing as all these things are.  That sort of work reminds me of a carpet of infinite length, rolled straight over tangles of old, dusty roads in an attempt at path-marking -- toward a doorway which recedes, like in a nightmare.  I might have to draw that.  He was still deep in thought when he came back to bed but the Subject was not over. He asked if I'd like to go to Oxford again.  Would I! A charity event is taking place in mid-August, one that he ought to attend.  He finished me under the shower after that & held me from behind.  Very relaxing -- I had a good sleep, though I doubt he did. Why does he even put up with me, really. 

To avoid a schedule conflict (?) I asked M if we were still going anywhere. He'd mentioned that we would be travelling at the end of July, possibly even twice.  He answered that because of 1) record temperatures in Italy 2) a recent "shift in imperatives" 3) the arrhythmia (which has eased up in the last four-five days, actually) I will not fly.  He'd planned to take me to a meeting in Turin (!!!) and there would have been a cultural exchange matter for me to mediate.  It wouldn't do to react but I was rather disappointed when I heard all that.

In other news, I'm getting a finger-prick-reader-device for blood tests on the 1st. Damn it.

 

_29\. Jul._

I called S to chat about that ex-pap bloke and I could hear a sort of scuffle, J in the background:  "Don't!  Donnnnn't.  Put on, would you -- just -- jeez-usss --"  Well.  It's the 29th.  Of course I interrupted something anniversary-related.  I appear to have a knack for it.  Mental note:  next month, it's one year for them -- do not call for a day or two before/after!  S turned on the camera and the first thing I saw was Chernobog, who he was purposely holding up to the screen while I saw a blur of J.  "Change barbers, you're a fright, dear," I said, and S snorted as he set the bird down so I could actually see him.  He was in the greenhouse, in a bed sheet from the waist down.  Most of the time.  He is impossible -- as I've pointed out, he has this afterglow-self, well.  I spoke to him about Marcus, and heard "ambidextrous Aquarius who would sooner listen to Earth, Wind and Fire than reason, cannot curl his tongue to sip an over-filled mug of his preferred sort of Puh-Erh" and other such facts I cannot remember now before he asked, eyebrows furrowed, if I want him stalked to raise stakes in Carly's feelings for him "because it could work". I told him a bit of *my* plan and he was actually keen -- on having an available artistic platform for annoying his brother at some future juncture.  (He was in form, today.)

I wanted to tell kitty what I'm doing but I decided to wait until I'd talked to Carly.  My M came by my flat to have an early supper in lieu of tea on his way somewhere (I won't stay over with him).  I had sth to try on (!) as he was sitting cross-legged at one end of my sofa, twirling his umbrella meditatively back and forth by the neck while he talked on the phone -- eyes glittering briefly just as I walked up in front of him.  "Prepare a summary of heterogeneous data in support decision processes, 89M (something)."  He nodded and stuck out his tongue like a strangled man.  "Mm, yes, naturally. A fusion of multi-source intelligence for correlated track presentations.  45K72, 04P99 for better understanding of route propagation.  That will be all. Until six."  He rang off with a sigh through his nose, pocketed the phone and looked me up and down again.  "That will do, yes.  Come here."  He put out his hand and smiled, I dare say proudly. Further context:  he'd brought me a fitted dress shirt -- the old-fashioned sort with slightly longer shirt tails, white lawn, airy -- from sb in Argentina. The back has tucking at the shoulder and in the centre. I'd no time to find my elusive cuff buttons so I rolled the sleeves to the elbow.  Paired with low-cut white pants, more like classic knickers with plain fronts -- well, who cares, I am also snowy (meanwhile many Londoners benefited from all the sun).  I sat down next to him and he asked me gently, while opening another button on the placket and running the backs of his fingers over my nipple (OMG) if I'd not wanted to dress for him lately, to tell him the truth -- if I'd felt any need to ease off (after the night I was in my heeled shoes, by implication).  

I was surprised he was asking that & I explained I've wanted to, though my mind has been a bit scattered and I'd not brought all my things to his place.  (As it is, it has been an effort to return to the drawing board and think in terms of lines and not only absorbing impressions & floating among them.)  He kissed me much more and then seemed to remember he had somewhere to be, and informed me we'd be going to the Whitehall office in the morning and then to a spec-committee sitting, that Rodney would come for me at eight, and I let him know I was (still) planning to meet Carly at ten & I'd rather not change it, so we'd not see one another until evening.  He didn't react, other than slipping a finger and thumb over another button and covering my mouth entirely with his, kissing me in a way that makes me want to grind against him, wherever, just move and have it all.  Thighs and cock preferred.  Hips and arse, also very good.  He put his hand in my hair and tugged it a bit, to turn my head and kiss along my entire jawline -- good measure, if I'd been in any state to think of it that way.  I wanted everything he could do with his mouth, everywhere.  I think I said exactly that.  He parted the shirt tails, found me insanely randy and falling out of those pants, bent down, and took about half my cock in his mouth, and I tried not to wreck it -- the most elegant gentleman ever, nibbling over me, imagine how I was melting through the sofa, I couldn't move.  When he finally had to leave I was so unable to even get up and see him out.  That actually went against all my mental impulses to keep him there.

 

_30\. Jul._

Without S and Sophie it's not common I have a reason to go out. A morning and early afternoon, with C.  I went along to see what "gear hunting" involves, for about an hour.  I learned a few things I managed to miss the first, second, fifteenth time round, seeing him look at 'gear'.  Photographers carry a metric tonne of accessories -- mainly battery packs because they are out all day.  And anything else that might break -- flash cables, neck straps, filters that cannot be screwed on X but on Y lens.  And then the lenses themselves.  They're all insanely competitive, in that field -- it had never occurred to me but he explained that a job like Marcus did of S and me in a cafe with S's gold ring (Carly's seen it, OMG) had been shot with a telephoto lens, the camera "tethered" to a mobile and sent to the DM editor, for a fast sale -- it all took two minutes or so after he'd got what he wanted.  He'd hoped for "action" but the handling of the ring was the clincher -- of course because S had been seen in another some weeks before.  I was lost after thirty seconds of listening to Carly talking to a chap in a shop -- about ergonomics, comfort, habit, grip removal, controls, not having to look down at menus, formatting without looking twice.  "If gear gets in the way, fuck, I don't have time to think about it."  I sort of winced and the other one nodded knowingly.  "Technically, it's better but not what I want to waste time with..."  ergo the primary role of "reliability of gear".  (I know so little about anything, really.  Oh well, I suppose I don't have to.)  We had a good talk, perhaps the best we've had since his return.  The first time I have felt we could actually be allies in a cause -- that matters. 

How did it go?  Well.  It will always be emotional, we are both stubborn, are we not.  "'The assignment isn't the work, it's the art that is the work'.  That's probably paraphrased," I reminded him, while we talked about "the work" and what it means to "the eye".  He bit his lips.  "You remember that?"  "It was a good one and I've thought of it often, doing jobs that I didn't always care for, but to keep my hand pliable and my mind clear."  "I'd no idea you were that ill."  "It wasn't from one day to the next, I hardly noticed the progression."  "You could've told me something whenever you wanted, it really burns."  "One doesn't get in touch in order to say, oh, I may be on my way out.  I wanted to say goodbye sometimes, in a way, until I understood how pointless it would have been, and disturbing what seemed like meaningful silence."  I don't know why I said it that way.  Anyhow.  We had a serious talk, one of a series we've had, except this one actually put things into place and gave us something new and positive to think about.  He admitted his feelings are still very mixed, on almost every front.  I said, "Carly, I see that moving to Santiago isn't a priority at the moment."  "No, actually I'm wanting to stay on.  I've been doing some clothing shoots for now."  Without going into things, he has some anxiety about street work at the moment but is working through it.  I said, "I have to tell you something I've been thinking about, hear me out, Carly."  "Okay, sure."  

He looked anything but sure.  "I've met our Abram this week about my estate & I've changed some things to be more, shall we say, current.  For 'the now', so to speak."  "What are you trying to tell me, though.  Are you all right?"  "I'm all right, that's not the point.  Please listen.  I would like you to look at this."  I gave him a file and he blinked at it and shook his head.  "It's a sort of charter or founding statement for a charitable foundation.  A draft for now, I'm still working on it with Abram.  Your input would be invaluable."  He looked up at me, and all the tension around his eyes and mouth softened, immediately.  Lessened. 

OMG, things have been that bad, true enough.  He opened the file, sighed, and looked through it with increasing interest while I tried to explain things quickly.  "It's for promoting British photo-artists, with an emphasis on quality street photography," I told him.  "Serious, Lexie?"  "Very.  It's often undervalued isn't it, and deserves large format gallery exposition," I remarked, "The sacrifices you all undergo to get proper pictures should be discussed."  (Of course the ones I see are from body cameras, for intelligence, but the idea is similar, is it not.)  His mouth fairly dropped open.  "Yeah, not many people get it, that it's not about luck.  Or just firing from the hip."  "I know.  I've seen page 27, the protest in India.  It's impressive."  He looked away and nodded.  "Carly, I've never thanked you for those.  Thank you, very much."  He nodded again.  My eye caught on the sun damage over his nose and forehead. "*He* showed you, probably, if you weren't following the feeds," he said.   "Yeah."  "So, this foundation was his idea, Lexie?"  "No, in fact I haven't spoken to him about it, yet.  So.  The subjects, in the spirit of an underlying idea -- like character assassination -- the character drawn from popular culture, ignorance, imperialism, post-colonial tensions."  "Like your drawing -- ?  So what's the name of the gallery?" he asked.  "I don't know.  Anyhow, through exposure, hard political topics, right on the edge of censurable -- areas that are ignored."  "Yeah?  Domestic, foreign?"  "Relating, arguably, to British interests.  Both."  "Good, yeah."  "Or upheld by the forces that be, and should not be.  I want truth, through the best eyes we've got in England.  Photography only, though.  And we will put it all up, let the less ambitious press wring their hands over the meaning of it?"  "Fuck yeah, they should talk."  "A gallery in a prime spot, a hub for events, and the money goes to war orphans, I've a list of locations in the world.  Are you interested in being the premier exhibitor, and I hope, the primary juror, who will later assist me in gathering a jury for content?" 

Recall, dear volume, that he is still depressed & a bit culture-shocked & easily touched -- the whole concept seemed to overwhelm him to where he closed up, patted my arm and left the table to go to the toilet.  I wasn't sure when he'd come back and I was starting to worry, actually a lot.  He came back about when I was going to get up and check, and slid into his seat, tapped his hands on the table.  "I've...got a name, I think.  Got a pen, ba -- ?  I'm...sorry."  He rubbed his mouth and looked over at me as though I'd tell him I'd been joking all along.  So I handed over a pencil and he wrote "F8&B" on a serviette, to which I said dumbly, "Fate, and be.  Fate that be...?"

"No, but it's a play on words."  He explained that it's about a type of focus-zone (F/8 setting) that allows for a quick shot in changeable conditions, like when people are moving about, without needing to stop and adjust it (?) "F/8 and be there."  About being present to shoot and not look at gear. So every photo-j, presumably, would know right away what that refers to. 

"I have to be there."  (There was an echo of that.  I have to be there, Lexie, see it, I can't just draw it...again, the approach of the photographer relative to that of the fine artist:  you can paint or draw things the way you want...I have to catch it.  Catching something is easy -- it's about luck and light -- I say.  He says that's not true, any more than he could sketch me with my pencil and create a likeness, by luck.  We debated that without going too far, or I'd have broken down -- it still gets at me, yes, I am impossible.)

And at last I put forward "F8&C," a play on words and on us:  "Fate, &c" -- that is me -- and "F8 and see" -- that is him.  He thought it was bloody clever, that people would get it, too.  "Though I don't entirely get it," I said, and he told me that photographers will know that it's for them & if they know they won't have to "compete" with other art forms for wall space, they'll be keen to talk about it.

Now I must speak to Abram and then M. Fate and see, indeed.


	75. The art in work

_31\. Jul._

Discussed ways to formulate the charitable purposes of the foundation.  Abram says there may be a difficulty though not within its functions of furthering the arts and promoting social awareness (on this basis we might even seek sponsors for competitions and hold events, as well as offer grants) but in sending the money abroad.  Instead, we might set up a fund for children, who have been injured in wars or have birth defects and cannot get help in their own countries, to receive corrective operations here in England.  It's a compromise but apparently there is a need for much more of that.  Abram has manifold pointers as to the sort of pitfalls one encounters in the process of application and choosing trustees. 

One thing occurred to me today -- a likely reason M told me about Carly's parentage.  He may have been trying to tell me why Abram introduced us, to begin with:  to keep his son in England.  I rule out money or inheritance, which can only be claimed by a spouse in its current verbiage.  It came as no surprise that the mention of Carly's involvement interested him, enough that he couldn't hide it, and did not, after a moment or two.  He went as far as remarking that he'd hoped we'd find enough common ground, that C does not reach out easily.  (A father's concern, far beyond that of a sponsor -- I'd not noticed it before.)

Anyhow, it may all take up to two months to organise -- Abram claims it will be faster.  He also made an offer to underwrite the loss I would take on cashing out David's investments now (they have another 11 years to maturity though there may be a certain loophole, we will see).  I told him I'd speak to someone about that, first.  He asked who the trustees will be -- again, I literally have to speak to kitty before I can do more.  Abram said he'd find people (in exchange) but I'd rather give M a chance to fill those chairs, first.  (I would want them to manage all the functions of the charity so I would remain the donor only and -- not wreck things.)

C called to chat about an idea he had to include posthumous exhibitions, citing an example of a fallen photo-j who was wearing a body camera on his chest (Palestinian by birth, who'd died on assignment in Iraq) thereby filming/photographing  his own body being found, carried, searched -- OMG).  The pictures have still not been published anywhere, he said, but they are well-known anecdotally.  I told him to start gathering as many more ideas of that sort as he could, absolutely.

22:05     I'm waiting for kitty to come back downstairs.  After supper, he presented a large file that contains architectural drawings.  The room about water usage I designed for the Beijing pavilion (?) in February, when the task had been to create a series of drawings -- which seemed not to have enough context, thus the lit waterwheel, and so on.  It feels like a concept from another lifetime and I was taken aback to see it all laid out in proper form and asked, essentially, why I'd not been consulted.  M replied, throwing a shoulder back and folding his arms, that there'd been no need to bother me with it.  To be honest, I was bothered.  On the one hand, the project was over my head -- I'd not have done more with it, and I'd not imagined any changes -- in fact, I've hardly returned to it in my thoughts, which doesn't say much about me, professionally.  On the other, it feels odd that I was to attend meetings but was never asked.  I told kitty that in the future I want more of a hand in things and he raised an eyebrow.  "Look at the plans and tell me what would have required you to sit for hours munching biscuits with the planning committee?  It's better for your reputation to stay away."  "Because?  Am I discreditable, in my public appearances?"  "On the contrary.  It's a waste of your energy and you would better cultivate an image of unavailability for low-end bureaucratic matters."  "I'd hardly call an expo pavilion of that exposure 'low-end' work!  Honestly!"  "I was referring to the committees, Alexander.  You presented a design well beyond what was asked, it was adopted for one room.  Of three.  This requires approval and that is all you have to do."  "The honorarium --?"  "Of course, what about it."  "Send it -- somewhere."  My treacherous eyes teared up and I don't even know why.  Tiredness, certainly.  M tapped the file and asked if he should leave me to it and I said no.  "Say it," he said, "quickly."  "I am the most impractical, bloody incompetent heir, a disgrace -- a man who hardly gets through a day on his own, whose very heart and blood are measured for him.  Who wouldn't manage a day without you, in fact.  This is me!"  He raised his eyebrows and looked me over.  He licked his teeth, turned away and said, "Mm.  Perhaps you would explain why you are connecting the pavilion design with your recent meetings with your solicitor?"

Well, he had me, there.  All the emotions started.  "All right.  Shall we untangle the two, though?  First of all, I've changed my will, the part concerning David's fortune."  He turned back around.  "How, in particular?"  His eyes went coal-dark.  "Well, you drew my attention to several things, nearly two months ago."  "I did."  "Among them, that I'd intended to maintain a status quo even after my death, that there are avenues to doing something useful for Carlton Parsons, sooner."  I explained what I was hoping to do with the foundation, very loosely.  The political side of it, the focus on street photography, raising awareness, the content, the functions, the donations.  

I'd hoped to present it very differently than I did -- I have notes, I might have pulled them out.  It was a jumble of me trying to show how important it is to me while assuring him I will have little direct involvement, making it all seem like a nervous plea for acceptance when it is not about that.  He finally shushed me and guided me across the room to that sofa.  He looked relieved, which is not to say relaxed.  "Alexander," he said, "are your ideas negated in any way when executed by someone else?"  "No, kitty, they are actuated."  "Just so.  And you do not expend energy needlessly on areas which are not within your range of direct knowledge or expertise."  "The impression, kitty, that I do nothing at all --"  "You contribute the art, not the work.  The art is inimitable."  "How do you know about that distinction between art and work."  "You've spoken of it in your sleep lately."  (And why would that be -- because C and I were discussing it.  OMG.  You see, volume, why I cannot be a secret agent?  And he tells me very dangerous state and military secrets every day.  Is that not utter madness?)  "How," I said, curling up and rubbing at my watery eyes like an idiot, "can you even.  I'm so sorry."  "You were speaking to me," M replied.  "Lucidly.  No bother."  "Kitty, why do you tell me the things you do, knowing I would --"  "And who would be at your side, listening in the night?" he asked, and pulled me close for a kiss with more than a shade of possessiveness in it, that got much wilder until I was on top of him, grinning down at him and palming him.

He's coming back....

_01\. Aug._

A palm massage, a lancet in at 10 o'clock or 2, a drop of blood the size of a garden ladybug, a strip, a readout in a minute or so, and there we are.  The magical INR.  And phone it in.  You see, book, I'd just managed to learn to ignore the clicking.  I can usually tune it out, now.  I've got a man who helps me with that.  And the more I focus on what I've got in there, and that I'm a clear candidate for one of those "on-demand" pacemaker units, the worse for us both.  There.  Gladys will draw blood periodically to send to the lab and I will compare how the machine reads it, hopefully there won't be much difference.  I'll have to do it every week or so.  No, I have not always 'cooperated' with the schedule...ech.

M tired and irritated after a series of meetings, the last being with the security committee, regarding the anti-drone technology for S&J's Eastbourne property.  Not much progress to report, apparently.  I'm pleased he's brought it up, though.

 

_03\. Aug._

Last night.  OMG, hotness.  When I got into his bed he had his head rested on his forearms, his back and the slope of his arse in strokes of moonlight, nothing more.  I just wanted to stand back and look, but the standing back bit wasn't working for me.  I straddled his thighs & rubbed his shoulders out until my hands were creaking and ran my thumbs over every bit of that beautiful spine, nibbled his neck and told him to behave.  He smiled at that, perhaps because I was certainly in no state to behave myself and he could feel it all.  Well.  I wanted him to.

I rubbed a bit of the anise over his perineum and massaged him, and when he was bothered to where I thought he'd finally ask, either to stop -- or to start (I'd never have managed to stay quiet), I started to rub his hole in it, a bit -- he was shocked.  I told him I wanted to eat him a little, did he understand, and he shuddered, turned over and said, like a person startled awake, "You should not."  "What would the ancients think, seriously," I replied, and he stared at me like he didn't know what to say, perhaps for the first time, ever.  He shook his head and closed his eyes.  "I have no idea.  I -- don't know."  "Yet I hear no refusal."  "True." It would be an exaggeration to say he let me have at him.  I tried to mix it in with some other nice handwork as I could, inasmuch as he'd even let me given his various objections -- imagine him stopping me and explaining a perfect list of them, as though he were reading from a teleprompter, where his concerns lie, why I must bear such & such in mind & short of shouting I knew (perfectly, jolly, damned, sodding) well -- I nodded, agreed, and gave it everything I would want for myself, which is a lot, actually, just for the record, book, pen, air in this room, yes.  It was still heavenly.  Perhaps the first time I'd done something like that for someone who knows not the virtues of a good rimjob and why he ought to have let. me. do. it. Even so, how am I supposed to sit quietly again, with him, knowing how I might pull off his trousers and enjoy even that much, hold his beautiful sac, his prick, his bollocks, the freckles just behind them, and that perfect, pink hole -- I love them & how deeply he is boiling, losing nerve by tight nerve.  It went to my head -- how could it not, the adrenaline.  He'd had enough soon (blushing so that I could feel the heat in his cheeks when I kissed his throat). 

I was also thinking, book, how in the beginning I didn't imagine he would ever want much of anything from me, and had even begun to prepare myself for a more distant type of 'admiration'.  But on a day like this, instead of closing up and thinking, he has started to reach for me, and accepts all of my kisses, even if he isn't always taking things as far as I want, when I want.  There is that.

And I rested against his chest and he talked about something else until he came around.  It was that sort of evening.  There are some like that.  We came back downstairs on the pretext of getting me a glass of milk -- he pulled on his robe and gave me his arm on the stairs.  I asked him when I could finally give him a proper blowjob on that lovely sofa and kissed him until he got out "Now would be very fine" -- ha. 


	76. Sowing

_04\. Aug._

Kitty and I were standing in front of his paintings and I asked what nearly anyone would when confronted with something of a portfolio which has a cut-off date, it appears, in the mid-1990s, "Wouldn't you like to take it up again, sometime?"  There is no question as to his eye for mixing colour and he has copied older British paintings rather well -- they lack 'soul' but that comes from a desire to share and show the self.  "Time," he replied, "and I've nothing original to express."  "Do any of us?" I asked, but he did not bite the hook, so to speak, which would have meant ruminating over creativity for the second time in a day, after he'd been critiquing my "Wrath".

It is in the form of an angry crowd against a single man, an allegory of media hate-mongering.  He is crouched, his back to them, apparently in submission, and the slander is about to encircle the winds of the earth & rush over them from behind and smash them all -- though they won't see it coming.  That is "fate &c" right there -- M did an interesting reading of the frieze using that analogy.  (Wrath is all in reds and greens from St. Petersburg, of course!) 

The paintings.  Those paintings (and the way they are *not* shown) have intrigued me for their symbolism since the first time I laid eyes on them.  I'm sure I've mentioned elsewhere (possibly in the other book, or not, so I will inform you, now, volume) that there are eleven paintings of different sizes, some being older souvenir-type landscapes, hung all over one wall (M's three depict a chestnut horse, a foot soldier, and a hunter's table -- all good, though not as carefully done as the Annigoni copy in his office).  The lighting favours the dining and hearth areas.  I told him, "Kitty, you've dropped many things you once loved and I admit I don't understand it."  "'Things'..."  "Not people, no, you're not that sort of friend."  He put his arm around my back and cupped my hip, and it felt fantastic when he leaned over to kiss my neck in what I would swear was gratitude, but there needn't be any, of course -- he's been a brilliant friend to me.  I told him,  "Interests.  For instance épée, you excelled at it, and left it."  His lips narrowed and curled up at the corners, just a flash of something there.  "Interesting you should bring that up.  No, go on."  "You once enjoyed the study of armour and armaments, look at these lovely armours of yours.  But now, you hardly read about history for pleasure, at least not that I've seen.  You once painted well enough to copy these, I suppose from an album?"  "Indeed."  "The colours are murky, like in printed reproductions.  As gifts?"  "Of course."  "And?"  (A Holmes shrug.  Mercy, they always resort to that shrugging -- I wasn't permitted to shrug in response -- Eustace wouldn't have it, rightfully so.)

Just to the left of those paintings there is a leaded-glass-panelled and wooden-framed door opening to a garden with tall walls, stone fixtures and pathways.  He has largely-ignored shrubbery and a bit of lawn.  If maintained, a bit begrudgingly.  He keeps it all curtained off, anyhow-- I've hardly looked out at it, which is a good thing.  (Ahem -- that is no indictment of the garden itself:  truth be told, M and I are often in each other's arms, when there, and not gazing out windows!)    

Focus, Lexie:  I asked why he doesn't use his garden much, particularly in summer (I'd gladly dine there or read with him) and he said he has fallen out of the habit and it brings him little pleasure.  "It's not been a priority in recent years."  I took his hand and kissed it.  "Brunches would be lovely out there."  "It's rather narrow, the walls are stark."  "It's east-facing, made for breakfasting, as your dining area is west-facing.  I would like to read in the sun.  While we still have some, darling.  Lately, I hardly get out."  "True."   "I'll never accompany you to Davos or Zermatt at this rate," I remarked, and he gritted his teeth.  "Not presently, no."  "It will need work, then?"  "Yes.  The stones are uneven."  "Unsuitable for heeled shoes, to be sure."  "Alexander."  My M is lovely when he blushes a bit on the neck.  "May I look at it, finally?" I asked.  He smiled a bit to himself and pulled back his curtain.  "What colours?" he asked, and put his arm around my back, again.  "All of the brightest ones, as many as possible, tall yellows and oranges and reds, with ground cover in violet," I answered.  "You'll have it.  When we come back from Oxford, weather permitting, for our first brunch?"  "You'll read, and I'll look for freckles to kiss."  "I cannot take my papers outside.  Satellites, Alexander."  "Satellites be damned, I'll buy a parasol.  Then you will open it, climb beneath it with me, and hold me while we read, and when it seems to suit us both, you'll take me by the arm inside for a longer kiss at the hearth.  And let me ride you in your lap until we both come like mad."  "I -- shall let -- ahmm."  "For why does a gentleman keep a garden except to calm his beloved, make them giddy with colour and scent, and then lead them inside to make love?"  That's sort of how I imagined gardens when I was younger -- seduction grounds.  A paradise for secrets and walks and kisses.  I was so naive, well.  "Or stay out and have a tumble in the grass?  Kitty?"  "There have occasionally been issues with garden -- ah -- garter snakes."  "Snakes?"  Yes, I was running the back of my hand against his trouser front -- trouser front?  There's a euphemism.  Anyhow, I said, "Speaking of which, why should they have all the fun in Eastbourne on that old fainting couch?"  M rolled his eyes at whatever he knows of that, or had just inferred about what I'd seen -- ha!  But I'd got him.

 

_06\. Aug._

We talked a lot about the foundation, earlier on, and M has put forward five trustees and a sixth who must be engaged at a later point.  They represent numerous interests.  Mooreford:  a retired journalism professor who still lectures at City of London, famous for coverage of wars in the Middle East, in the 70s and 80s.  Buchanen:  president of a photojournalists' asssociation for many years.  Koorn:  A public relations and libel expert.  Lehrermann:  the real L, that one...who is available to provide a household name and possible financial backing, OMG.  One patron M won't yet name -- no need, his eyes glitter.  It's HRH, I'm convinced.  The last of them, Johns, is the sole female trustee, a well-connected UN border security consultant and observer who coordinates armoured convoys of humanitarian aid in many of the worst corners of the world's wars, and is the sort of logistics expert who is called to remove citizens, or citizens' bodies. 

Oh, mercy.  This is happening.

 

_07\. Aug._

I met Carly today at the studio space he's time-sharing with other fashion photographers ("this is a clothing shoot!" he corrected me when I said 'fashion shoot').  The list of people involved in the project excited him so much, he knows Mooreford and respects Buchanen.  It was actually the first time I've seen him look that way since he got back.  Lively.

So, a 'happy announcement':  I've been with M the longest of any man, as of today.  Of course I won't come out with that over dinner but it is on my mind.  I was with Lena longest, book, ten months, three of those engaged to her.  (The morning she called and said she felt odd, how she'd hoped she was pregnant.  How I'd wondered -- asked myself dozens of new questions within minutes.  "Never mind, Lexie! Just nesting, Mum's saying....") 

I wonder if M has ever considered marriage?  I suppose I might ask him as much. 

I would like to give M ten good years, at least.  Why in hell have I even written that.

 

_08\. Aug._

On the subject of torture and surviving particular types of it (I'd had a question about a scene in a novel), S remarked on Skype today that I would not survive many techniques. I heard J tell him to shut up, rather sharply.  S answered him, "Please. Think about it. Repeated electrical shocks would stop his heart, am I wrong.  Breaking of selected hand and foot bones -- haemorrhage.  Binding his wrists to his ankles for an abdominal beating?  Roughing him up against a wall or table?  Sleep deprivation?  Lack of access to medications?  Clotting, embolism, infection. Cutting --"  "Shut it, love."  "Hi John.  For the record, my pain threshold is fairly high," I said, rather horrified at what we were saying, so matter-of-factly.  "I don't doubt it," J replied. S broke in, "Mhm, so you'd take a state secret or two along like the chap in your book? Established?" 

One or two, indeed.  Good the camera was switched off. 


	77. Blue ribbon

_10\. Aug._

After nearly a year of thinking I'd lost David's silver St. Christopher in an Austrian ravine forever, I found it at the bottom of my pencil case when I knocked it over and dumped everything out of it.  It's rather small but I can't believe I misplaced it -- I must have been very distracted.  If only he'd worn it more.  I haven't been in much of a state to leave my flat but I have to say my thanks for that. 

Dear David.  I wonder how he would get on with my ginger kitty?  Not something I can let the mind rest on, for long.  Onward, it's the only way.  Toward the light.  No looking back.  I say this as I delay texting Carly back on something. 

Will pick this up later on.

A chat with few insights about the undercurrent of melancholy in him. Emboldened by our recent chats about interests and the growing sense I know very little about why earlier years may have left him so closed off, toward knowing people.  There are men who are insecure and have self-esteem issues (hi!) and I would venture to place S in that group.  (Venture!  See?)  But M is self-possessed like few people. Yet.... 

He tried to summarise, as he tends to:  "It is the gravity of too many years."  He seemed about to move on to something else and I interrupted it.  "Invert and re-explore that thought, darling, as you would tell me to."  He exhaled. "Too few years, indeed," he remarked, the corners of his mouth flashing an unconvincing smile.  "Shall we live well, then, kitty?" I asked, and kissed his chin.  "Very well," he said, and sniffed a laugh that was still not amusement but musing.  "Are you aware," I said, "that right now I love you better than ever before?"  "Do you."  "It keeps happening."  He nodded and looked abstractedly over my shoulder -- in search of escaped insights, I suppose.  "Kitty?"  I must have looked put out because he shook something off and said, "I'd not expected you would come to feel that way." "I know, you as good as said so, that day under the stairs." I was moved to put my arms around him & hold him very tightly.  Poor dear, I don't know what that was about.  He was so lovely, though.  Is so lovely.  I raised a hand and brushed it over his temple and head.  "Well, you'd no idea what you were getting yourself into."  He said, "Very fortunately."  (Beautifully answered.  That is him.)  "And oh, hhnnnngh, Lord, yes...."  (Palming right between my legs.  Licking a long line down my neck.  Squeezing my arse to show he'll want me open.)  "I love you," I said, sort of -- I think I was mostly moaning things but nothing that stopped him. "Come here," he whispered, breathing over my throat warmly and manoeuvring us to that sofa of his. It's wide enough that we can get face to face on our sides but not for very long because he has to keep me from falling back on the hearth.  It's much better to get on top of him, dear book, and there are so many reasons to want to.  

The rest, hotness I cannot even begin to put on paper.  You know something about the way he is, when he has been working far too much and we relieve some of that, I don't mind where, and on good days like today, neither does he.  Obliging that, book, is my greatest delight, and if I were better at writing I would tell you every naughty detail about what his mouth does to mine, how his tongue feels in rhythm with his prick deep in me, the way he pulls me to bits with kisses.  Is it worth noting at all that I have never had anyone fuck me like this?  He would say the same yet how can that be when he leads that way, and one is unfolded, a lovely thing in pieces like a diagram, to be traced over by tongue and fingers, because that is how it is, with him, that I am handwork, a piece of what he thinks is beautiful, construed by his love to shapes I'd never have taken on my own, of happiness and pleasure and release, where I am hardly myself, my own shape, that I become someone better and lovelier, loveable, wanted, somehow ageless as love makes us, a bit of the universe, timeless and somehow naive to the heaviness of our world.  How can I ever express what that is, what he is to me, when it is larger than us?

 

_11\. Aug._

Three hours at the MOD this morning, lunch in the centre at a bistro in the sub-ground floor at one of the buildings formerly used by numerous key Home Office employees (colleagues from earlier times in M's career); it is "further afield" and no longer a popular lunch-hour destination on foot.  From where we were it was necessary to drive, anyhow.  He has been waiting for sth ultra again which he expects within the next 48 hours.  On the phone continually while I read notes from Abram for the third or fourth time to get all the details clear in my mind as he recited those codes to someone under guises of phone numbers, perhaps to Andrea.  (The people M has chosen for the board of trustees have all agreed to their roles.  Abram phoned that everything is rolling forward.)

While attempting to mask signs of familiarity between us my treacherous brain began working over the pressure of his lips in various sensitive places, on the back of my neck, shoulders, nipples, &c -- as he was sitting across from me.  I would like to memorise all those freckles, I thought, to distract myself.  That I, while caressing the sideburns in front of his ears, could learn how the hairs all grow.  That to me, the "portraitist", it would come entirely naturally to learn which lines deepen, according to how he is smiling or focusing his eyes, or when his face is turned away, how all the angles at his jaw where it meets throat are constructed.  Not to neglect the contour over the Adam's apple, which is singular, in profile, in moonlight, or in the glow of a night light.   

I told him later, when he was close to me in bed, "I was thinking about how I'd want to catalogue some things for myself."  I kissed the tip of his nose.  "Oh, Lord," he groaned and chuckled.  "Kitty.  I can carry a measurement or assessment of a gradient, for instance.  But I cannot for the life of me commit things to memory as I'd want to.  Do you memorise me?"  "Deliberately?  No," he said, "I don't employ the memory devices my brother does -- 'the mind palace'."  "What is that, though?"  "Ah, he's never mentioned it?  He was once keener to talk about it, when he took the time to 'organise' it.  It's a construct for placing memories in an imagined space, with rooms and furnishings as markers to stimulate memories associated with them.  I've never found it useful.  You might."  "Do you miss him, darling?  You seem a bit sad when you refer to him."  "I do miss him."  "Go see him with me.  We could go southward and stop in."  "No, he'd not have it.  He'd sooner come up to see you.  Or receive you, alone."  Sadly, he is right. 

 

_12\. Aug._

M wanted to take me to the Haveline tonight, preferably in blue, everywhere, but I asked him to come see me at home instead after I've had an afternoon of drawing.  It might be the best evening-dining venue in London but I cannot be myself there, tonight.  I'd rather make something for us. 

How is it, book, that I am as fluttery in my chest as I was getting ready for our first evening, after S's & J's wedding, if not more?  And not just because we have to consume my own cooking.

I'll need to leave this for now.  For reasons.

 

_13\. Aug._

So I was dressed for a theoretical supper after a rather odd afternoon though it was worth the effort -- to that extent I can better understand why many ladies submit themselves to the awful treatments they do on their legs.  Book, because this is becoming awkward:  I count myself lucky today, as I have on occasion, that I am not among the hairiest of men.  Here kitty and I do differ, and that is *not* a complaint but a restatement of my good fortune, as you are aware -- regarding beautiful auburn, everywhere he lets me have at it. 

M arrived, aware that he should look for me in my bed.  Thus at eight sharp, he found me in greyed-in eyes, wrapped up in the embroidered cobalt silk gown, with the edges of heels visible beneath it, on my duvet with my legs tucked up to the side.  He told me, recall, pretty book:  should I want to be taken again standing, I should wear them.  When he saw, he smiled and leaned down over me and kissed along my jawline.  "Are you sure?" he said hotly in my ear.  That is literally how he greeted me, and asked me to stand, as if anyone would manage.  Mercy. I told him I wasn't able, just then.  I gave him my hand and he brought it to his mouth.  And started sucking my finger and kissing the inside of my wrist and arm, to encourage me up.  I pulled my hand away and his knee hit my bed and he was over me in a second, listening to my heart and deducing why I wouldn't move.  Kisses everywhere on my face.  And he seemed to like every reason he'd come up with, including all the anise I had in me, for him.  A good reason not to move much, true. When he pulled the gown open to see my feet he kept pushing it aside, with a small smile, just enough to see a pair of black stockings he'd not known about, and his blue silk ribbon binding my ankles.  "I took it while you were off showering for too long, two days ago," I told him.  That.  Purr.  He grinned then but his tongue seemed to catch behind his teeth.  "Let me take those off," I said, but he shook his head & wanted to look some more.  Naughty kitty, I was so horny, trying to stay relaxed.  He turned away and undressed & I had to watch it.  When he was ready to see more he opened the gown from the side, ignoring my cock while he ran his fingers all over my calves and up the backs of my knees and thighs.  He loved it all & took off my shoes so he could kiss my toes and feet & then enjoyed a pair of knickers I've got, short silky boxers (not meant for wearing anywhere, really) open enough at the leg that he could push them aside and have my hole already.  He pulled them down to my knees and I rested said knees on his chest until he suggested he would like to look at my ankles some more & so I sucked him to leaking while he kissed my legs and slipped the gown off my hips, then off my shoulders. His pulse was mad.  And I licked over each of his bollocks & I told him to come inside me again & he put me over on my side and held my knee up a bit -- so gentle, but gave me only half to tease me, knowing what it does to me.  It was very slick and he was hardly moving, to stop himself coming too quickly, except that feeling the silk and putting his fingers down the tops of the stockings turned him on so much that it started to come over him & I could feel everything so I moved to set him off harder & and he fucked into me a few times more & came.  I was gone & I begged for his fingers & he kissed me ("Are you certain?") & got me off -- he'd never fingered me & didn't know how much I love it fast.  All the while my ankles were hobbled, like that.  And he was petting my calves and feet, which was so sweet, actually.  We kissed and held each other & I got another very long, meditative tonguing later on.

We're going to Oxford tomorrow morning for two and a half days, two nights.  One suit, kitty says, three shirts, and something for the evenings.  "Yes, choose something nice for yourself, for the evenings," I said, and he looked at me with a flash of challenge in his face.  Mercy.

Postscriptum.  I will not be back at the drawing board today.  OMG.  We were talking earlier (he has just gone to an emergency sitting) and I asked, "By the way, darling, you have got the news you wanted?"  "Not entirely what I wanted."  He lowered his voice, "You recall the raid on an installation in Syria, a laboratory?"  "Mmmmm...yeah."  "One of the scientists has broken, we have a trace, it was not the main facility."  "Broken?"  "Indeed, that was a proxy or decoy.  We will know, soon."  "Kitty!  That was 6 weeks ago.  Have they been tormenting those people for a bloody month and a half?!"  "Alexander.  What is six weeks?"  "What!" I exploded.  "Perhaps you fancy an interrogator paces about a hangar, playing witty intercultural mind games like in films.  Or that there are not tens of thousands of such detainees in various scenarios, around the world."  "Six weeks.  I'd not last a day."  "No, you would not."  M sighed and shook his head.  (Yes, he had definitely thought of that many times, S was right.)  "Those poor people!" I said.  "Sympathy?  The quality of your political satires notwithstanding, you are not attempting to set off a holy war across Europe, using bio-active poisons!" he growled at me.  "What!  The blight?  To start a war?"  "I am convinced.  And I'd have you live!" he added, and the restraint in his voice was scarier than what he might have let out.  Perhaps he meant that remark as a declaration of his love, but I could not bring myself to respond, then.  

I am trying to stay calm and think ahead.  He knows what to do with these things, as he's told me.  There is truly nothing I can do, for him (or for our country, in fact) but give him all my love, as I have.  Lord, help us all. 


	78. To have

_14\. Aug._

17:35     Oxford is every bit as lovely as last time, and I couldn't be happier to be here.  Imagine, a sort of festival to raise money for charity, with sports for alumni.  Book, you don't understand.  Fencing is involved, and yes, S was right when he accused me of having a weakness for swords.  Worse, M won't tell me anything more about the tournament, aside from "you'll know at least one of the participants"!

Going to dinner, soon.  This is a charming room.  The chair across from me is sturdier than it looks, just saying.  He is beautiful dressed down like he was just now, all in tweed, though no ordinary weave, to meet fellows rather than foes.  The warm light pouring into the courtyard & on the crown of his head as we left for a walk.  I would've taken his arm and pulled him close for an unconcealed kiss, just one, like a gentlemen did on the pavement, grasping a lady I'd taken for his daughter seconds before and starting something in our path so we had to veer over onto the lawn as he pawed at her back pockets.  Well. 

INR 2.4, said the machine as of 8 a.m..  Let it be so, whatever.  I went home briefly when kitty left for a consultation & was at church just after 9, with A3.  (I've sometimes wished I could go through things without the Anthonies anywhere near and this has been one of those days.) 

A longish drive this afternoon because of a detour.  I was fastened in next to M & he rubbed the back of my neck or petted my shoulder gently, while reading and grumbling at varying lengths, depending on the authorship of X text.  His heart was right beneath my chin, and.  I was excited to be going away, too.  I was texting with S.  I'd not heard from S in a few days & now I know why:  an order of beekeeping equipment, including the bees themselves.  First, J ordered 2 hives from a club/supplier in Brighton, as a surprise.  S tried to lure passing bees with wax and lemon grass unsuccessfully but has now bought a swarm of his own.  He is excited because he is the only keeper in that neighbourhood and hopes to "prevent drift" (?)  These aren't things I'm familiar with at all.  I can say he sounds nearly as excited about honey & those pigeons as he once was about the skin on corpses.  He could not be prompted to greet his own brother, however. 

In fact there are things about S that evoke bits of David's personality.  My David was so bright & when manic fancied himself mentally and physically unassailable, would run on pills. And he loved to show (whomever) how without anyone's mollycoddling he'd achieved X or Y times more than (me).  

 

_16\. Aug._

We got back to London about an hour ago and he was needed and had to go off post-haste, so.  The kitchen, my pen, the book.  From where I left off:  our first evening/night was shorter because I was tired from all the excitement of the matches.  And who should be one of the finest but our Randall, who is simply remarkable with a foil, it was exciting to watch him.  He was also pleased to see us both, afterward.  It is perhaps the first time anyone has seemed to acknowledge us as though we were purposefully somewhere, together -- I cannot even say 'as though we were together' but even so, it was noticeable.  More on what came of it later on, if my hand allows me to write that far.  Our first night we turned in early, not long after sunset, and talked and kissed until nearly midnight.  The morning was perfect and we had a breakfast at a house with a full-service place though it was in an older hall similar to the one we had, with leaded, crested windows and long, heavy church-like seats.  The tableware was rimmed in silver and the flatware ecclectic by contrast -- mine had three different patterns.  As he has before, M had asked for everything to be made for me to suit my diet, salt-free, and so on.  It was all carefully done, both mornings, dinners the same.  I wanted to touch his hand so much, when we were sitting across from each other, there.  I suppose it was an accumulation of different needs and thoughts.  Later on when we'd viewed some of the sport and had taken a stroll, and talked about everything from brothers to sunrises to Gongsun Long's paradoxes, he said he'd have a surprise for me in the afternoon.  And got an urgent call from Andrea.  More codes & one (the only one I know after all these months of hearing them nearly every day) in particular 5343, which is "eyes" -- four eyes, a one-on-one chat.  He took a seat on a Gothic stone bench and bored his gaze into a nearby wall while I sat dumbly, two feet over, and watched two clouds sweep along high overhead, join, and split apart again in a curious way.  He rang off abruptly and sighed.  "You'll wait for me, Alexander.  Two matters, then a social call, a bit of wine."  Dinner, late.  Instead, A3 rang at the door that he would take me out for a light supper, which was brief, understandably. 

M returned at eight with a single paper sack in his hand & though I'd been drawing for those hours, not having felt up to much else, I was out of sorts, at first.  His mouth tasted like Porto and he closed his hands over my lower back and returned my kisses with much slower & longer ones.  When he paused and had a look at me he asked if I was feeling well.  "Of course.  And I missed you."  "Etiam celeritas in desiderio mora est."  He slipped his fingertips in between my shirt buttons and added, "It took far too long.  But certain contacts...."  "That's fine," I told him.  He appraised that for a second or two and said, "I've brought something, and you may have it if you like.  Or else we'll put it in the garden, for target practice."  "Not sweets, then?"  (He chuckled suddenly -- the drink).  "What is it?"  He handed me the bag, containing a cut crystal cup, wrapped in coloured tissue paper.  When I turned it over and saw how it was engraved I nearly dropped *his prize* from one of the fencing matches.  "You?  Third?" I shouted. "Guilty as charged."  "Kitty!  You didn't let me watch, and you were part of it?!"  "Inasmuch as I was forced to prove a point," he said, eyebrows raised.  "What sort?"  "I was written in as guest referee for about an hour.  Ah, I'd not competed for a quarter century," he explained.  "How could you not tell me.  You didn't even text," I said.  "There was no time," he answered.  "For a single word?  Honestly," I growled.  "Nobody could have accompanied you quickly, and it started in jest, to show how easily a certain rule could be flouted.  My point total placed me third, the organisers were forced to give me the cup."  "Brilliant, darling. Of course they did, congratulations."  "We three enjoyed a bottle of Porto, and I left them as they were opening the next.   To explain myself, thus."  He bowed slightly and then muttered, "I was in the over-50 group, for God's sake...."  Meanwhile I'd been forced to laugh at his expressions, there was no way to stay angry for long.  "I would have loved it," I said.  "It was amusing, yes."  "Did anyone film it?"  "No."  "Kitty. How could you deny me the pleasure, though?" I asked.  M was watching his own fingers trace down my shirt front as he quirked a brow and murmured, "I assure you, there shall be no further denial of your pleasure this evening." 

As soon as he said it, something sparked.  He came to and started to say something else & thought better of it.  I don't know how I looked just then, but he didn't withdraw, so I stepped forward, took his head in my hand and kissed him until we were both gasping and I dropped the cup on the bed as I pushed him onto it.  

I shall describe things because I cannot forget them; I needn't -- because I cannot forget them; this is the entanglement my mind and body are in.  I can't write.  And I insist I can instead of resting.  I had him last night, and that, dear volume of mine, is how it started. 

When I think of how he looked, reclined with his hand on his thigh, prick curved up toward his stomach, the head breaching the top of his pants by far -- art.  I wanted to kiss his bollocks, first.  (You would, as well.  Yet you've no idea what I mean, do you.  Just do your part so I don't go mad with desire before I see him again.)  As well, he was framed by the lovely place, the warm old walls, the stark white linens on the bed, a lock of hair that I later smoothed out for him several times.  "You've been drinking," I whispered as I licked up his neck and told him where I planned to use my tongue next, and he laughed to himself, or to the room.  By then he was pink, his eyes tempered slightly, his kisses still scented with that heavy syrupy wine, his tongue slow and his lips more lingering and curious, his hands soon between our legs.  "Your kindness toward them all," he said, perhaps referring to the meals we'd taken with his older colleagues.  "Fortitude, of the kind that first took me in, from the -- far-off, as outlying -- admirer."  He stopped talking and swept over me with those leaden eyes, which were nonetheless shining with want.  It's a particular look he gets when he needs to put it in me and I cannot resist it any better than I can describe it, dear volume.  It was all I could do not to rub him over with lube and take him over to the chair, I'd have gone off quickly with him like that.

We shall not keep count but I'd wanted to switch many times.  So when we were tugging the rest of each other's clothes off, I decided I would show him a man's pleasure, at least once, with my fingers & if it seemed he could bear it, I would fuck him.  I ate down all that gorgeous precome of his and I rubbed little circles over him & sucked him until he was pushing it into my throat.  I put his leg over my arm & waited for him to tell me to stop it.  He didn't.  He had his forearm rested over his closed eyes.  Not much more than a catch in breath from him, and then a growl when I got him.  His legs were so tense, his toes clenched (prettier than mine, I must say) and in that very delicate position I nearly brought him off, just touching his hole & letting him understand what was coming, a bit deeper.  Well, we know how it is, book. 

It must have been well past eleven when I told him I had to & kissed his entire chest and stomach & sucked him harder and gave him a long, very careful massage, the sort everyone wishes they'd had once they know better. 

He was astonishing.  I could stop right here. 

My dear volume, I'd never been anyone's first and I was looking for every sign of how he was taking it.  The beginnings have to be very slow, and were.  The mind-clearing heat I'd not forgotten the perfect feel of, the understanding of what he was letting me do, or more precisely, what he was letting us be.  It was surreal.  I'm not certain this is making sense.  Onward.  

There was this moment when he hugged my arms to his chest and almost laughed -- impatiently, for my sake -- imagine, when his body was still very much fighting me.  Very moving.  In a word, I'd not anticipated that sort of confidence from him, in that sort of moment.  I'll be blunt:  I'd pictured silent endurance or withdrawal.  Of course it is not enjoyable in the beginning -- consider the comparisons to getting body art one hears occasionally -- but I had the impression (that is saying too much; in hindsight I can recall it) he wanted to understand my desire and his own enough that he was brushing aside a lot of the usual baggage and doubts.  He wasn't listing any concerns.  I love him all the more madly for what he was doing, to make it special, for me. 

In all that slowness, shall we say, I had this thought -- how fortunate, that I am here.  Healthy enough.  OMG this is so hard to write.  There's more and I just have to get there.  Nothing went wrong.  I can say that, first.  Of course I don't want you to understand why that was, and still is, remarkable.  Because such knowledge comes at a price I wouldn't wish on anyone.  But I was fine, and so was he.  It took a lot of the anxiety away for him, right away.  It was like I could feel when he realised we were both all right.  I almost lost it in the middle of my own dream come to life, and that is the truth.  The adrenaline & hormones saw to it that I smiled and kissed him for ages, instead. 

After, because it was smarting & he couldn't take any pleasure from it, we were resting & he suddenly caught his breath & opened his eyes, doubtlessly because my heart had hardly slowed down.  That's sort of a "coming-to" sound I associate with his brother, who gets distracted far more easily.  From M it shows he'd been thinking carefully, without as much as letting go of my arm once I'd stopped.  I stroked his sideburn (perfect, just above the base of his earlobe at the moment) and he turned to me and I got a small brush of lip and tongue, not unlike some of our first kisses, which always take me back to the hope we put into them, and still do.  Then they got breathy & adamant so I gave him my entire mouth to be licked and sucked & he put an arm around me & let it become slicked and formless, passionate and devilishly sexy like those when he gives that gorgeous cock faster, never too hard & really gives himself to me, and comes verbally, too.  When I looked at him again his eyes were so blackened with that need to fuck I'd just had, and I couldn't see down in those sheets but I put my hand over him & he held my arse & whispered that he wanted to open me with his fingers, as I'd done earlier on, and would I move however I needed and that he cannot forget the sight of me against his thighs, dressed up for him in the black stockings, knickers at my knees and my slim ankles...but that my particular sort of mannishness in bed is irresistible, as well.  To forgive him if it is over very quickly.  Here he had started stroking my legs.  And when he got my sweetest spot not long after that I told him loudly to finish me already, and he took me on my side, too, so he could turn my face to his and kiss me as wildly as he did, it was so good.

He was hot enough that I nearly forgot what he'd just been through.  The pain is real, book.  But he wore it with class and didn't say anything about the state of things this morning when I woke up far later than him.  The ride back to London was all business and files, unfortunately, but he hardly stopped touching me in small ways that were reassuring and partway there he set down the papers Rodney had brought and gave me his tongue and lips...for a very nice detour.  

Thankfully he will be here, soon.  I need his lips again.  In all honesty, I am about to go off.


	79. A garden for Alexander

_16.- 17. Aug., various_

He'd not said a thing about what we shared in Oxford.  I'd gladly rehash whatever bit he liked, what he'd like again, whenever, so I'd begun dipping into reserves to keep from bursting out in questions.  So I asked, in the car, when I slid my hand in between his thighs and said I cannot forget & and would want him again & he answered quietly, "No."  A small shake of the head, perhaps for 'enough' but I was not finished.  "Never again?"  "Alexander."  "Are you --?"  "Very fine."  We weren't getting anywhere so took my hand back & kissed his cheek.  "I am, too," I said, "though I still wish I'd seen you win that cup 'for the garden', I'm not over that."  "I might overwrite your disappointment," he remarked.  "The ultimate five-word essay?" I asked.  And he sniffed, put his arm around me, pulled me closer to him in our seats, and did the rest of the reading in silence while he petted my neck.

When we reached M's house I was a mess & more, having got stroked like a lap-cat for nearly forty minutes in traffic.  Door shut behind us, I went in for bluntness in the absence of innocent bystanders.  "Look, tell me if you're okay with what I did, all of it, I mean me."  He seemed to have surveyed most of me, ending at the eyes, before nodding.  "Darling, consent is one thing, the feelings later are another, I know."  I said that because things are more intense now, between us.  I am not harmless, he is now wizened to what I give him, meaning myself.  I'm not sure that makes sense outside my own head, but so it is.  Deal with it, paper, I have.  My earlier partners were rather self-serving and the sex was more like ticking boxes on both sides until C, and it's hard to relate to the person who allowed it to be like that, and yet.  Hello.  Anyhow.  The sharing of intimate pain, physical and psychological, and giving over the self & the age we're at, is so meaningful, I know he will never forget it.  Not that he forgets anything. "What else," he said, staring.  Because he was staring by then.  (I was right, he wasn't really at ease.  Perhaps it hurt. He didn't say.) "I wanted to show you how much I feel, that way, and."  "I don't doubt that."  "What do you mean?"  "Or I'd not have as much as considered it."  "It was wonderful, like I knew you would be, I didn't know how to tell you, but you were fantastic."  And he smiled.  That woke me up a bit, and I realised we were talking from a full yard apart, we were still in our coats, imagine.  So we helped each other out of those coats rather quickly.  

I asked if the garden could indeed be repaired before the end of the summer.  I really needed a change of topic, by then.  And of course I got the biggest surprise.  I asked that, and M sighed, dropped his briefcase & led me straight across the room, to his back door.  "Your thoughts?" he asked, exposing the panes in front of me.  I uttered something incoherent, I don't even know, and he stood by and took in a long breath through his nose while I stared mutely.  "Colour and scent," he stated, "as arranged by Andrea."  "She's done the unimaginable.  Nearly silenced me.  Tell her she's brilliant."  "Ah, she is aware," he said, flashed his canines, and dropped the curtain back into place.  "I'd like to eat outside this evening," I said, "or, no, the table is already set, isn't it."  "Yes, dinner's in ten minutes."  "Could we at least take a cup of something warm, out there?"  He put his hand in my hair and brought me closer, to kiss me just behind my ear, where it tickles most.  "Another night.  But have a closer look, by all means," he said, and pulled aside the curtain & herded me out that leaded glass door.

Imagine:  the dingy, austere walls are now lined in tall sunflowers (many in full bloom, procured from a nursery that specialises in supplying film sets and southern-style gardens.  "Because I kept you from Italy," he remarked, later on.)  Their heads were all turned westward, of course.  Then there are the zinnias, dahlias, daisies, roses, OMG.  All sorts of yellows, interspersed with oranges and burgundy (even a few dark red/brown striped sunflowers), a few red and orange roses, with violets and purples below, indeed:  salvia, pansies, petunias, coleus, and a periwinkle ground cover I don't recall the name of.  The same violet flowers are interspersed with purple and orange pansies and line the bit of lawn in the centre, which has been tamed but is patchy.  Not that it matters, in the least, it will grow in.  It hadn't been apparent before but there is actually a little sundial nearer the back wall, copper gone verdigris on an austere cement post, with the inscription "Omnes vulnerant, ultima necat."  Gracious Mother.  And the gnomon is a stylised, pointing human hand.  But the colours! 

I noticed that the paths were smoother, as well, and I made him blush as we walked back through quickly.

Just outside the door from M's living room, there is now a very large, dark green parasol, perhaps six feet across, in a heavy iron stand.  Beneath it, he's got two (large, stable) chairs which recline and are framed in weathered wood, and a small, old oak table with a top that has ceramic tiles, some crazed with age.  Very charming, one would never imagine it hadn't been there for years already.  It turns out it was their Mum's, brought for us from somewhere in storage, as I found out afterward.  "But promise there's no blade," I said, gesturing at the barrel of that parasol and M replied, "If there is, you'll find it."  "Thank you for doing this so quickly, I adore it."  "Habit, a gravity that pulls action toward method," he said, and shoved his hands down into his pockets.  He looked up at the clouds and then let his eyes sweep over the entire perimeter.  "Or I might have done it sooner."  "Well, it's done up wonderfully now."  "One succeeds best in forgetting to look about him when -- never mind."  He swallowed.  I'm not certain where he was heading, there, so I chose to divert us both.  "Do you actually like it, though?"  "Of course."  "Ah, that's fortunate."  "Explain."  "Well, I'm not sure I'll want to be indoors anymore.  You'll have to see me here," I told him.  I tried out a chair & M stood over me & looked as though he might come down on me, any minute.   Well, one always hopes.  "When will it be dark, darling?"  "In 23 minutes, 20 after Gladys serves dinner.  Come along."  "I've half a mind to take up out here tonight," I said, to which he smiled, bent down on the knee which is bothering him a bit after a lunge and which he refuses to see to, and ran a hand over my arm.  "It suits you, Alexander. Come inside."  Dinner, lovely as always.  He'd asked for my reading glasses, again, and we spent the rest of the evening gazing at photographs and he let me lean back against his chest so I could turn and open several shirt buttons and kiss his sternum when I felt like it.  We composed official responses to various reports and issued waivers or some such matters and I got hard imagining what was behind me there, between his thighs, until our minds began to turn us toward each other and we dropped the papers for the rest of the evening.  He is literally burning inside and one cannot keep his mouth in check when his lover's skin tastes so mannishly sweet wherever he may be unbuttoned or unzipped and kissed.  His hair and those freckles like bands of cold stars in film negatives, my favourite line of auburn down his abdomen, a pointer.  Downward.  Once I have his shirt & his flies open and I get my favourite, first view of his prick straining upward, for me, how it quivers when my lips are closer, it is the most lovely torment for us both until I have him in my mouth.  His head falls back, his lips thin into a line of restraint that cracks into a gasp and grows, curling upward slowly into a blissful smile.  Or he reaches between my legs and runs his hand over me.

(You should smell it, though, how it has changed outside.  And there are bees and little birds, now & a number of small, quick brown & coppery butterflies which are drawn to the darkest violet blooms.  Satellites?  I wonder how the satellites would like my 8.5/43 feet, poking out from under that parasol?  Would they feel the need to adjust their lenses?  Ha!)

_18\. Aug._

On the subject of Randall -- I asked M about sth R had said when we met, that he was "supposed to make an envoy" of me.  M replied, "Yes.  Have you any objections?"  "In theory, of course not.  But I've not seen much of him."  "As things stand now, you will not travel by air.  And I shall not leave England, presently."  He said this while pulling up the knot of his tie.  I crossed over to him and put my arms around him from behind.  We looked silly together in that mirror of his.  He:  thinking ahead to a series of meetings, stony in appearance while fiery within, a study in sartorial distinction, poking a pocket square into his jacket and glancing at...me, in a black t-shirt and soft pyjama trousers, tufts of grey hair deserving of a harsh confrontation with thinning scissors, red-shot, dilated eyes, chalky skin in need of a shave. Horny.  He made a face to make me laugh, before the preening stopped.  I started to pull off his belt from behind and he protested that he'd lose his trousers over his shoes, that they want altering in the waist -- would I care to call Carter to arrange it and make an appointment for myself, &c.  I told him to remove the waistcoat & did my best to rumple his shirt and left a smudge of rose-scented lip balm on his cheekbone & another at the corner of his mouth.  He remarked before leaving that he associates florals (the iris, the rose & now anise, of course) with me.  He changed the subject (ended it) because I'd slipped a hand into his pocket and found something warm and responsive to my touch and it seemed to render us both speechless.  Well.  I did get him to turn around and kiss me. "How long have you got before Rodney gets here?" I asked.  "Al-ex-ander."  "Oh, that's plenty."  "Nnnnno...."

Regarding the scents:  "I'd not envisioned how compelling their association with a man could be."  The way he puts things when they are important to him -- the phrasing is never effusive, which is not to say unemotional.  There is no doubt as to the journey they have come and how much may have fallen aside over the years.

A professor who had been at the Turin conference a couple weeks ago (when we didn't attend) is meeting with M right now.  He's going to find a card from me, if he hasn't already, ha.

\---

Ginger kitty, what a change in a man, in love:  first, he believes love is life, second, he wants a longer life to love further.  He cannot recall it being otherwise, loses track of time in absolute bliss.  I don't dare imagine how distinguished you'll look unclothed, in steel grey.  "That, we shall yet verify", to put it in your words.  How can you fear old age? 

You are at work now and I cannot kiss you in anticipation of those most precious years to come.  Later, I will.  

For now I await your return, as I always do, impatiently, lovingly yours, &c

\---

 

_20\. Aug._

A second laboratory has been found in the night, abandoned.  "Not neurotoxin.  Wrong. All along.  A virus does their work, of creating volume.  It is in Europe, certainly, we've cross-checked passenger lists and ground crossings --"  "A virus, then."  "A suspicious HA protein strand is under study."  "Oh, good."  "No, the site has been empty five weeks by my estimation.  You know, far better than those responsible, why."  "Tipped off." "Yes." "By the first raid in June, that one at the end of June?"  "Just so."  "Oh my God, research is that many weeks behind? Is it?"    

He murmured something in Arabic and put his face in his hands.  "Kitty, I'm so sorry.  Mycroft.  You think things like that are within our direct control, when it is in the hands of the Lord," I said.  He groaned in frustration and dug his palms over his eyes.  Another call.  And another.  I cannot say more, as he cannot.  But it is grave, indeed, to all of us, if his qualms should pan out to any degree.  And he says war must be prevented at any cost.  Meaning awful things, as well.

"For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39.

The contents of this book could end us both.  Perhaps that is why my hands are not terribly steady, now. 

Lexie Bertie, who do you imagine you are?  I should burn this were it not my only record of our love outside of what I carry in my heart.


	80. To hold

_21\. Aug._

"The early warnings and internal alerts.  That cannot easily be reformed, you said."  "Certainly not now."  "Kitty, delaying it could bring great harm."  "A change of subject is in order."  "The truth is, a scandalous imbalance --"  "Alexander!"  "Reconsider your path of advisement and move toward reform, however uncomfortable," I told him.  No response.  "The leadership class must not withhold information about the danger of a bloody pandemic."  "Indeed.  There are no such plans."  "No?  But the origin of that modified strand --"  (That is where he finally fixed his most determined stare on me.)  "Can and will be withheld! That will be enough!" he cut me off.  Forcefully.  It was unpleasant.  He's capable of better.  "You shouldn't let that be," I said. "And how would you have it!" he literally snarled at me.  I'd had more than enough, as well. "Ginger kitty," I said, "my grasp of this is...entirely different from yours."  "Well put," he replied, still hot-eyed.  We looked at each other until my own eyes started to water up, damn it.  "What is it," he said.  "Nothing more.  Should I leave you alone to your thoughts?" I asked.  "No, I'd rather you stayed by, if you're not tired."  "Kitty, gladly, I'm perfectly fine."  He nodded.  "How are your shoulders?"  (Awful.  That was apparent.)  "Little d -- ahm."  (?)  "What?"  "No."  "Little...?"  "Little can be done.  Come closer, please."  "I shouldn't know any of these things, kitty."  He sighed, "Shouldn't...if ever a language item were middle grey."

I slid over to his side of the sofa and put my arm around his shoulder.  One of the arguments we've had, or sort of a series, interrupted by less inflammatory topics. Well, there are too few neutrals for my liking, right now.  I don't care to write about times we disagree, they need to be let go of, but we do disagree, sometimes strongly.  Today there was too much emotion for it to be a decision he agrees with at all levels.  Just a note for myself, should this get worse.  He is not pulling the strings, anymore.  Or, not yet, as the next phases will need his advisement, too. It is endless, I am mostly useless.  I try to be appeasing because there is no sense in arguing with someone who does not utter things without layers of contingencies, special knowledge, experience and logic behind them.  

And he has gone unopposed for so long.  There was no taikomochi who bent close to his ear and said, you should not, do take care, reconsider.  Then again, there was nobody to tell him some other things, either:  well done, breathtaking speech, an exceptional solution, you were fair to them; the road is clearing, your focus is remarkable, your discernment did not fail you today; calmly does it, you'll find a way if anyone in England can; you are brilliant and your efforts are enormous and important; I love you dearly, like life itself; you should be kissed, held, stroked, swallowed up.  Loved forever.  Make love to me instead of all this, take me, home, start with a finger or just your mouth; your tongue brings me round quickly as you discovered the first night in the back of your car. How you kissed while trying not to show hunger.  That same barely-contained need I had, I'd have eaten you.  Tonight, something silky to wear on top.  Soft under your hands, so tensely curled around a pen or a phone, or the edge of a tabletop, if I asked you to sit back and let me give you a show in your lap?  That would end in kisses?  Scratching up the sides of your thighs, with heels?  You'd come, I might need to finish on you. Might do.

Once you pulled your jacket to the side so casually I could have missed it.

When he gets out of that shower he will find me like this. 

 

_22\. Aug._

Luck and choice.  We've covered this before, I know, M and S both say it:  there is choice, and chance, but 'luck' is assigned unsound values, &c.  I thought I'd play with M a bit on that, as I'd been at his side for a whole afternoon and evening, helping him write replies (very much by choice) and rubbing his neck and shoulders for him.  'Gladly' does not begin to say a thing.  Not easy on me, he's so good-looking, even when frowning, I've explained this.  Warm, soft hair at his collar, orange & cedar at his chin.  Also sharp, archer-like, my Orion.  And if you could understand by now how that energy of his works, the same sort of electric aura that warns off others' minor expectations, that instant understanding of how he is well beyond, you'd certainly give me more pages. 

It started when I said, in an overly-hopeful response to "not luck/a series of propitious choices", that "I didn't choose to be so lucky or I'd have done it years ago."  He exhaled so long that I said, "When I realised what I felt for you there was no choice at all.  I'd been --"  "'Lunching'," he filled in.  One of the Anthonies must have been nearby, of course one had.  Lord.  Imagine the reporting, book, can you even?  The sales manager, or Zayan, when I talked about Carly, he about his, how we were apologising for it. Choices.  Luck, because I am so lucky, there is no man like my kitty. I cannot even write the rest.

Better now.  I need to eat regularly or I start shaking apart.  Pills.  

I should mention we were on his sofa in his living room, and he'd just been reading aloud, and shuffling some papers about joint exercise schedules and an advisory team, &c with my cold toes stuffed under his right thigh which is my favoured one for a formation of freckles one cannot see until M has his pants off, at which point they become even easier to overlook.  "And at that point I also thought you were --"  I bit my tongue.  Uninterested, let us say, here.  We stared at each other for a moment and an eyebrow went up.  "Consider," he said, "how you first appeared at the club, with a card.  Addressed to me."  There was a little silence in there, but when I asked "Which one?" the papers in his hands came down immediately.  He paused and glanced at my face, then tipped his chin up, "The first one, your first visit."  "How did you know I had a card for you?"  "You'd spoken to my brother.  He wouldn't have passed on my number if you had asked for it."  "Really?" He was right, though the idea of merely asking S for the number and ringing him had never crossed my mind, very true, and he was in the middle of affirming it:  "You'd refuse me in writing, it's your way.  It was in your jacket pocket.  You paused in your reading and moved to pull it out when an attendant was near but changed your mind."  "I wanted to finish an article I was reading.  As -- you know." 

I was thinking, Lord, how could he know all that, and remember it, but that is my kitty.  There was more.  He continued, "I elected to invite you in for tea, above all to see the card. In the interest of promptitude.  You didn't give it over so I asked what your purpose had been in coming, to remind you."  "And I meant to tell you I wouldn't cooperate in that manner when the information you needed was likely at your disposal already."  "Ah."  "Once we were talking I thought I should try to understand things more fully because I'd decided you were bluffing, though it seemed a total waste of your time, that is, speaking to me seemed to be."  I touched his shoulder with the back of my hand.  He didn't look at me.  "Kitty.  I wanted to end our acquaintance amiably once I understood you were --"  "You didn't hand over the card.  A choice I found puzzling, and still do."  "Of all things that shouldn't puzzle you, darling."  I got closer and put an arm around his shoulders & petted his cheek, while he considered aloud if the position wasn't uncomfortable for my chest.  "Giving the card over would have been tactless.  Besides, you were interesting," I told him.  "I'd -- not slept very much," he said, as if that were the key to everything, which made me smile like an idiot, he's so sweet.  I added, "I really needed to know what sort of person I was refusing to help, because of your relations, you know.  You know why, it's complicated, I didn't want to bring on any sore feelings."  "A change of subject would...."  "No.  On the very same subject, I liked talking to you."  He swallowed hard and said, "The second card?  An amended refusal."  "Yes, I think I removed the word 'temerity' and one other."  "'Generous'," he muttered.  And finally, finally, he smiled, gave me a short kiss to the cheekbone, and remarked, "Then an oversight following a painful fit of coughing."  I tipped my head forward.  "You helped by being extraordinary.  Come, now.  I can't even think of other words without wanting to kiss you."  "May I suggest some."  "Honestly, kitty."  "Because you're tired."  "Mm? Really?"  I got up and stretched my back, showed off something.  He stood up with me and put out his arm for me.  He was still elsewhere, mentally.  Something ultra, again.  Problem solving.  "Come, then.  Tomorrow the car will be here at 7:40," he said, leading me to the stairs.  "You'll accompany me in the character of a...." he explained, detailing the purpose of a meeting at 9, which I cannot write about.  But I choked on my answer, my throat and eyes, traitors, failed me. 

Book, lovely one, I try to remember that he has burdens, things that affect many and I have to be patient, just tell that to your horny self a dozen times an hour and you start to split apart, sitting next to the most desirable somebody in all of London, who doesn't even suppose you could love him as searingly and as hard as you do, and watching him drift head-ward into a night of reflection, alone, and nearly abandon the body altogether, honestly, it hurt right then. 

How does one say it:  leave the puzzle of the UN resolution's effect on X terror cell's pressure on prices of X which have made a newspaper claim X meaning that England X, fuck me slowly.  By the time we were at the top of the stairs he'd felt it.  "Alexander?" he said, coming immediately alert, because whenever I can't talk he wants to know why.  If it's for an exception, or condition I might make, when in fact I only want him easy, like -- stop there, Lexie.  Shall we say I want him easy.  He's got that sort of look, and there are times I can't bring myself to ask simple things, despite what we are to each other.  He picked up on that.  "What have I said," he asked, "that you are in this frame of mind?"  "Happy?"  "Fragile?"  "I care for you, darling."  "Answer."  "I just did." "Goodnight, sleep well." 

He kissed me.  And.  I am sitting here, writing this & I have failed to engage him at all.  I will not beg to be at the forefront of his thoughts.  Shower.

 

_23\. Aug._

Further to last night.  He was standing in 'my' room when I came in, and startled me a bit.  "What is it that I've not seen," he asked, quietly.  He'd never said something like that before and in the adrenaline of having him there and the frustration of other matters I shrugged at him. He looked me up and down. "You wept in the shower," he said, "and tell me the reasons."  I pulled up my t-shirt, from below, and slipped a hand over my stomach.  I wanted to shout things.  Can't you just put me on your bed, pull up my legs, forget everything else, it won't kill me -- he must have seen all that on my face.  His widening eyes.  He went pink, to the end of his nose.  "Ah. Again?" he asked, and got even more flustered when he realised how he sounded.  Again!  Mercy.  Try to, book, really.  "Again." "I -- hm." "You liked me on my knees. And I loved it.  Do it again, I can tonight."  I stroked my stomach like he had, once.  "And let's make it very wet this time, I'll want it quick, but please, carefully?"  His brain worked that over.  Gracious Peter, that groan when he grabbed me by the waist and rubbed his fingers over my hand, that he would touch me, not to carry on too far.   (So good, finally, he'd blocked himself in for whatever reason, that I'd not bear it so soon?  Soon.)

We went to his bed and kissed until we had to touch each other all over, and rubbed over each other -- so many clothes, still, it was hilarious -- until I asked for it and he was still in his shirt, I told him to go on & he kissed the back of my neck & ear until he got me to turn my head & fucked me like I was the most beautiful thing, running his hands all over me, lightly, watching me laughing when I came, so hard that I started coughing, which wasn't particularly pleasant.  I must have looked insane just then but he kissed me anyhow, and rubbed off on my thighs and my hand, it was fantastic.  

This morning, I asked kitty over breakfast if he could do without me keeping him awake for one night.  "No," he said, a hint of amusement reaching the corners of his mouth.  So I kissed the one of them that was closest.  It tasted like marmalade so I had to carry on until Gladys nearly walked in.  We tried eating quietly. Or at least I had to make an effort. Finally, I told him, "I'd like to go to Eastbourne this weekend, if they'll still have me."  When I said that, he glanced up at me from his papers.  "Your brother invited me down." (Unfortunately, he invited only me. Lord, I didn't even write that a few days ago S & J got the anti-drone device I'd been bothering kitty over, it slipped my mind, but that is why S texted most recently, to come round "while it still works".)

"I could go by train," I suggested.   M shut his eyes and shook his head behind his teacup.  "No crowds or public services," he said, sipped and then softened his tone.  "The car is at your disposal, of course."  "Thank you, darling."  "Anyhow, you'll have baggage."  "To a destination where either man could carry me and my baggage together."  (Sigh.)  "And I'm not taking any long, exquisitely sewn things along."  I took a strategic bite of scone.  He was already staring, deducing the "why" in me wanting to go & my state, as it meshed with thoughts of the cobalt gown, and so forth.  We'd had such a good night, too, last night was so sweet, a lot of emotion after tense hours of work and that brief misunderstanding, the way he gave it to me, it was so loving & intense, he was so hard, his prick in my thighs, gorgeous, I loved watching that so much but I can't tell him so easily.  I licked my lip and let him catch me at it.  He is lovely when he lets *me* catch him at it.  When he is open. We stood up from the table at the same time so how could I not put a hand into his hair and pull him to my mouth and show him something?  So we settled it almost wordlessly that I am going South.  "A request," he said, a bit out of breath from kisses (very charming on him), "regarding what you're *not* taking along."  "Yes, please come with me," I said.  He shook his head as I pulled him toward the sofa.  "You'll leave your long, exquisitely sewn journal at my house," he said.  "Oh?  For a bit of level-ultra reading?" I teased.  He actually looked put off at my suggestion he'd take it and look at it.  "Of course not. My brother wouldn't resist for a minute, however," he explained, and frowned at his own imaginings as I felt adrenaline flash through my gut.  He's right. 

Anyhow, I made a mistake.  Foolish, thoroughly so. I'd imagined too much, of myself &c.  I'd got an impulse, book, and I said, "And we'd not want them to know."  He raised his eyebrows in a questioning expression while pulling my shirt tails out of my jeans and settling a hand into the small of my back, as he likes to.  "I meant, that we could be next," I said.  "No danger of that," he replied.  I might have left it alone. But when I'd processed his words, my heart started to click madly and he pressed his lips to my cheek.  "Of what, though?" I asked. He blinked and explained very calmly: "We will not 'be next'.  I see no situational advantage in that construct." "No, I meant a civil union."  "Yes. And you have assigned it a high value."  "Of course I have, the highest."  "Needlessly."  "I would not say that." "You would not," he countered. "Are we on the same page?" I choked, literally, on my own tongue.  Again, the coughing.  Dry throat and tongue.  He brushed my cheek with his fingertips, asked me to sit down and strode off to the kitchen for a glass of water while I tried not to fantasise about spearing myself on the fire grate. 

M returned with the water and stood over me, arms crossed, and reminded me to sip it slowly.  He continued, "Your contact with Mahlersohn, the presence of Mr. Parsons, anxieties from the intelligence dispatches you are privy to, your belief structure. Your devotion, to me. Drink more slowly, please. Your questions among the manuscripts in an Oxford archive were not unexpected." "Your answer meant a lot to me, all of that did." "I thought I'd allayed your concerns."  He paused and waited for me to talk.  It came out too stiff:  "You have not thought of it? Ever?" I asked. "No. The emblematic significance or 'legal advantages' are of no particular weight given my position."  "Can you really assume your position is permanent?" I said, without thinking.  Damn it. But I have often felt it was a legitimate concern -- it's a treacherous thing to work with the sort of people he does.  Well, he didn't reply.  I put my arms out for him and buried my face in his neck when he'd settled in next to me on the sofa.  "Kitty, I meant at your work, not us, I promise," I said.  "No apologies," he answered, and kissed my ear, "I should value a clumsy legal apparatus?  We won't take any part in it."  "It was just a question."  "No, it wasn't." "It -- wasn't, no." "No." Well, I lost it. I'm not okay, but his love is true. One revises his hopes but not his feelings. Honestly I cannot put anything more into words now, about this, except there is that one matter, concerning my contact with Mahlersohn, as irony would have it, and I should have liked to resolve it with kitty. Which is to say I had in mind to do it, I don't want to write it down. Enough.

So it seems I'm going to Eastbourne -- I called J and he said it's more than fine, to bring clothes for windy conditions. And slippers.  


	81. At the sea

_24\. Aug._

The portrait I've been avoiding thinking of too much, and the accompanying visit, is in 10 days. 

I've been looking through some drafts and cleaning up my desk, mostly.  Reflecting more than I probably need to on the hidden texts, 'generous', 'FOR KITTY'.  He mentioned in bed, several days ago, how much he'd liked them.  Imagine that he'd not received notes or love letters from anyone before & considered my decorated 'Insoluble' card preferable to indifference, at that time.  And liked my formal replies to his invitations. His sending for my consent: he does not tend to invite, now I know. It still amazes me that he ever asked for what he did. It was a beautiful day, I was reading it over again, just now, for reasons. And that he asked me, and not someone better, OMG it doesn't stop. 

Looking at the hidden texts differently at the moment: should anyone find them, and they will, they'll be analysed in terms of "secret" and not in terms of "love", first.  Is this making sense?  He doesn't see the point in the same things/gestures/traditions I do.  Understandable.  However, it crushes me that we won't ever be open. I shouldn't smile at him outside, excepting a simper or polite flash of acknowledgement, of orders or the like.  I never thought I'd agree (be asked to agree) to that & I have. 

Yes, I am, so fucking what.

So, a day at my desk.  Time went uncounted until I saw dark spots in front of my eyes and realised I'd not eaten a bite between 9 and 3.  Spoke to Carly, as well re. a change of studio space he has decided on.  The rest can be discussed in another entry if at all, as I need time to absorb what "settle down" even means to a man. He wanted to tell me I should consider myself welcome there, in that space. His space. Mercy. 

Tomorrow would have been Eustace's 90th birthday and I have a bit of an urge to orate in a sheet outdoors which S would undoubtedly be able to help me with.  Dear man (men). 

An evening in the garden at M's, with chamomile and biscuits at sunset (I insisted), though it was humid after a rain. The weather's gone cooler & the sharp-earthy scents of the sunflowers, ozone, grass and the spice in the zinnias were making my head swim.  We sat and talked about S & some family matters.  M pensive, his mouth pressed thin. I asked if he was all right & he affirmed he was.  Then he stood up & asked me to take another turn with him.  As we walked he hardly seemed to be breathing.  He does not say things he regrets, book, hence a tone which was not one of apology but explanation.  Enlightenment, in growing darkness. 

"Your discontentment is evident &c" (he said it better, I cannot recall the exact words he used, re. 'redundant ceremonial aspects').  I heard him out & told him I have set the matter aside & I have no intention of rehashing what was apparently an unwanted subject to him.  And he closed his mouth again.  Once we were inside the house, he drew the curtains, cupped a hand over my shoulder as though he were about to break awful news to me, and said, "In the spring, Alexander, there will be 30 blue hyacinths, 3 doz. daffodils and a row of dark violet irises, along the beds behind the sundial."  His eyes were all over me.  To be honest, I've not seen him look at that uncertain in a while.  "And I'll be delighted to watch them coming up? I suppose?" I ventured. He swallowed and I asked, "What's the matter with the garden?"  He glanced down at my hands, which I had folded one on the other at my waist, perhaps too formally or expectantly, I don't know, book.  "Nothing, when you are in it." "Lovely to have something to look forward to, then, kitty." "Yes." "Because I -- adore bulb flowers," I said.  Because I do, but that wasn't the point, was it.  My heart started racing, loudly.  "So do I, by association. With this iris," he replied, and leaned in for a kiss to my neck.  "Thank you," I got out, barely, and held his head where he was tracing the first line down my neck with his tongue and lips, may there be many such lines over my body tonight.  No chance of a little mark, though I'd gladly take one along.  "If you will go upstairs, first. Come."

His kisses at the bottom of the staircase were knee-weakening and I'll need many more.  Now, preferably.      

He'll be back in here any moment.  So I will leave you behind, volume. 

 

_ _ _

A few lines for you, Kitty, as I wait for Rodney to bring the car.

Last evening in the garden, walking on your arm in the dark, I could think of little else than this:   I love you with hope & warm regard that know no caution & follow no form of measure & never will.  It is an enormous pleasure, therefore, to sign this

Yours forever.

(I have packed the paints after all.  I will miss you terribly!) 

_ _ _

 

_27\. Aug._

I was out of sorts when I wrote that.  Farewells never go right with me but M was lovely about it and stayed back a few minutes longer & kissed my head & told me some things about S's surveillance regarding where to speak/walk discreetly, gave me a large envelope to pass on to S w/ more papers and pictures, enumerated reasons I might call such and such person.  Reminders not to skip my pills.  To avoid handling the birds (because they incidentally scratch).  To remember that he will think of me constantly, to think of him, too, to call in the evening, to look in my things later on (he'd put a card among my clothes, in the suitcase, naughty man).  I choked up when I read it & J saw through the door but didn't comment.  It said, in calligraphy, "Your virtues so entirely capture my thoughts, be forgiving."  Signed with a small flourished bird, absolutely beautiful.  Does he imagine I am cross at him?  I haven't asked, but he must realise that he is everything I need and love on Earth.

This evening's writing might be a bit uneven because there are a lot of little things I'd note down while overarching impressions are pushing in, too.  I'd not been away to visit anyone in ages, nor had I been to our Sussex.  Add to this a flurry of other thoughts after having a very special night.  His toes, the dusting of freckles on the tops of his feet, the way those feet flexed and his toes curled, when my mouth was on his nipple at the right moment to send him into a very deep, mad spiral of pleasure, oh yes, I will remember him like that when I am -- Lord willing -- OLD.

The change of scenery (from London! not from the above!) was utterly delightful.  London wears on me even though I go out so rarely.  The air and the sounds reach our blood and leave it heavy with waste -- how else can I put it.  Anyhow, I didn't even question adding another night away when they asked  & kitty agreed I might, that he wants me to rest, because the rain that was falling when I arrived didn't allow for any time outdoors and S insisted I stay on.  Kitty had spoken to J about me, and J would say only "pretty inclusive" about what needed to be attended to in case of this-or-that matter.  He was most concerned about arrhythmia.  J asked if I'd been having shortness of breath &c and I noticed he was choosing all the moments S was outdoors to comment about life, London, films, stories, M, and so on, while working in a question or two of a more medical nature.

I showed some snapshots of the garden on my phone, mainly to J, as S wasn't receptive and J certainly was, for his own reasons.  He is no gossip, but has a natural curiosity (and is bored socially, a bit), while S is flagrantly denying any interest in his brother's "affairs". 

I should describe their house a bit -- small but liveable.  When one walks though the front door, there is a tiny entryway/porch/windtrap enclosed in glass but overgrown with vines, making it dark.  This is where they leave shoes at an old bench, and hang raincoats.  When opening the next/inner door one enters the living room, nearly as spacious as what they had in London.  On the left, there are bookcases along the wall and a table jutting out with a bright lamp mounted over it.  There are three older, mismatched oak chairs around it and papers on all surfaces until S re-stacks them according to human need.  Like for drawing. Boxes of papers are shoved in a corner (temporarily, because as I pointed out, the temperature difference in the winter will wreck them -- J commented that he's concerned about the books, too).

When looking straight forward from the front door, the left half of the living room has a back wall with a doorway to the bath/bedroom, and the right half is open all the way to the rear of the house, with a combined dining area and kitchen on the way.  Again, similar to Baker Street, assuming one enters the living room from the street side -- the fireplace is at the right, with their chairs and little tables, plus another short bookcase for J -- the dining/kitchen area beyond his armchair.  The door they once had to the stairwell would be their bedroom door, which one has to go through to reach the bathroom, which has a tiny foyer of its own before a second door to their lair.  How they got S's bathtub in there (black, footed with little dragons, from Romania, OMG, so gorgeous) I cannot imagine.  The entire back wall of the kitchen is glass, shared with the orangerie, meaning you can see straight through to the property behind.  I adore it.  The orangerie is almost as big as the kitchen and bedroom combined and has its own little stove and a bit of old furniture.  S has put some of his scientific equipment out there on a table made of an old wooden plank on two saw horses.  I ought to have taken a few photographs of it, it was very atmospheric.  The double-chaise.  Oh, dear, it is a man magnet, facing the property, so even better.  There are no people (or drones!!) anywhere around, only a few milk cows in the next field, so.  So.

I shouldn't write this, but one has to start somewhere.  S made no effort to hide his pleasure at being married. 

I'd wondered how they'd be with someone suddenly "in their midst".  Moreover, I had their bedroom at J's insistence (free-standing stove in there, lovely). They took the chaise, lucky ones.  The second night they turned in a bit conflicted over hygiene & the birds (S has few borders concerning his pets, indeed -- M had said as much) but the first night, out of excitement and the utter silence of the place (the valve so noisy I wanted to scream), I had odd dreams and a shallow sleep.  I got up for water around 2 & when I approached the kitchen I could see out through the window that S was crouched over J's lap, the doctor's head cradled in the crook of his arm -- he saw me, too, of course, because of the...view.  Right.  I shrugged and sipped my water for a second -- I can't even claim to have been sorry just then, and S was not, either.  In fact I had the impression he was letting me in on it & I could have stayed longer -- OMG, the sound his doctor made about then hit my cock like a stray hand.  J was whispering to him the entire time, holding S by the waist.  I need to shut this off, now, but try, book, when they were a gorgeous marriage, even in almost complete darkness.  So I tiptoed back to bed missing my M so much that I'd have gladly escaped to London right then and frotted over my kitty the same. 

Coastal air, S claims (indirectly), increases J's 'pliancy'.  Ech, I believe him, too, I was getting a bit pliant with myself.  Sorry, not sorry.

Quite honestly, if M and I were living together, and in such a remote place, with no files in his hands -- Lord, the pliancy, the furniture.  We must consider an arrangement of that sort someday -- if only he would want to leave said files.  M is dreadfully overworked and I'd so gladly replace that with care, and spoil him as he spoils me. 

And he is tired.  Even now, he is sitting across the desk from me (at the club) reading and jotting some things on a notepad, and I just noticed that for relief he looks up at me.  And about an hour ago, he said, "Kerwin's newest place, for dinner tonight, in Bloomsbury?  It's not far.  That suit will do, the scarf.  In two hours?"   He pulled out his watch and nodded to himself, picked up his reading again and commented, "You tempt me to abandon this research on the hydrocarbon recovery technologies being promoted by a certain foreign interest in Azerbaijan just miles from an installation we now know the true character of...mm."  I smiled.  He must have heard how my heart picked up because he glanced over at me.  "Only one of the Caspian Sea reservoirs -- you might come closer."  "I might, I might," I said, and kept working on the new concept for "Lust", which I have struggled with at all levels...ha.  "Bugger," he sighed, set down the memo in his fingers and brushed a much-desired hand over his face, blinking back to fuller alertness.  "Sorry?" I started to laugh & in a moment he followed suit & let himself smile back, his throat pink in places.  (He still looks a bit restless, for him, though concentrating bravely over there.  Handsome, tie loosened a little, just noted I'm staring again.)  "It seems I won't put two words together," he admitted with a short, impatient laugh.  "Pity, I wanted three," I teased him.  He replied, "Where there might be volumes."  "When I was in Eastbourne, I thought a lot...."  "Yes?"  "About you. So much. I even wanted to come home to you at two in the morning, I could hardly talk myself out of running away."  He held out his hand and I got up.  So did he.  Not his usual way in his office, but he needed something, too.  As I mentioned, he's just a few feet away at the moment, trying to finish things so we can do a bit of running away.  Dinner will kill us both. 

It's nice to have you back in my hand, hand-stitched vessel of inestimable patience.  Teach me your ways.

I have so much more to say about that trip.  And what I felt when I came home this afternoon.


	82. For better

_28\. Aug._

Still thinking of Eastbourne though M's garden is its own sort of oasis.  The colours are truly absorbing and I am drawn to it like one of the plain little butterflies M says are called "skippers" for their style of flight. By the channel, only an occasional car on the road broke the silence in the night, where every sound was muffled by mist.  The air was good. I have a bit of a sore throat at the moment.  If I'd known I wouldn't be getting underfoot (one inevitably does by the 3rd day no matter with whom) I'd have stayed yet another night. 

Well, book.  A year (tomorrow) for J and S since they were first at the sea, together.  Amazing! Their love is an extraordinary story I have always felt very fortunate to have seen. I'm sure I've written that elsewhere but it is all the truer, now. Kitty claims I played a crucial role in bringing those two together, though I fail to see how being sent to an interesting work site abroad facilitated that. (Lord, I once worked. Really, I am ridiculous. At least "Lust" is going well. Ah, Lexie.)

There were a couple of funny things I wanted to write down about my time in E. When S ran outside to text someone (better reception outdoors after dark), J & I spontaneously agreed it was a good time to think about going to bed, as it was past eleven and I was probably yawning too much. So we sort of wandered into the bath together, talking about one of his and S's cases (riotously funny -- he has started to write a longer, embellished piece about it -- they weren't together at the time but in his tale they are) and it wasn't until he was putting toothpaste on his brush and I was rummaging through my shaving bag that we caught each other's eyes in the mirror and I said, "See, I'm already far too much at home."  I backed off and he shrugged and almost dropped some paste on himself, "Fffff -- nah, stay."  He's so sweet, really, straightforward.  So I asked him something about that silver-haired DI, and managed to knock over my bag, spilling the pill case, razor, comb, toothbrush, rose balm, graphite grey kohl eyeliner and a certain little round pot of matte grey mineral shadow, whose resistentialist leanings expressed themselves in a dramatic roll down the sink where J was just leaning in to spit a mouthful of toothpaste ("Mmmmnng!") & I snatched up the shadow as he said "pthhheehhh shhhhiiit," in an absurd moment I will fail to convey no matter what I write.  His ears and neck flushed red while I casually (oh, hell, not so casually, who are we kidding, volume?) retrieved my things, wondering what he must imagine, and how very right he is, and whether to uphold pretences:  yes it suits me, yes kitty likes me elegant, yes I'm getting aroused just imagining way he looks straight into me.  J sort of eyed himself critically in the mirror for a moment, sniffed as he does, seemingly to one side, and stood off with arms folded & hands under his armpits, "Uhm, so."  I started my round of brushing and he asked if I'd had any dental work done since the surgery.  Well.  "Look," he said, perhaps to tie up things, "It's all, you know, fine, I don't, it's -- Jesus."  A lot of blood, yes.  "Thank you, dear.  The travel brush is too stiff," I said, once I'd finished rinsing my mouth.  "Yeah, uhm.  You look -- better, like, happier, so."  "I don't suppose you're complaining, either?"  "Nnnope."  There was this weird silence, and since he didn't leave, I started rubbing cream into my face.  "We are," I said, "two of the luckiest twits in England."  "Yeah, I know.  Yeah."  He actually smiled, and I was pleased to see that there was no sarcasm in it.  He believes me, that I am happy.  Oh, Lord, that matters.  In several more seconds we could hear S kick his shoes off at the back door (it had been raining rather hard earlier).  "John!"  "Ah, another lucky twit," I said & winked at the captain, for good measure.  He coughed and turned on his heel.  "Huhmmm.  Yeah, in here, love."

The other thing. 

When S told me after breakfast that I might stay on longer instead of going back in the afternoon ("He can talk to his fountain pen, it'll be more than --"  "Stop it," J hissed.) I went to call M but got no signal (it is encrypted in some sort of layers I can't remember the name of & does not always go through -- or there is a click and a pause, and one waits a moment or two).  When it was silent, S made "am-I-right" eyes and went to feed the birds.  When I heard my M's voice I must have looked more than pleased because J's eyebrows betrayed him.  Or maybe it was that I said, "Kitty!" without thinking.  J smirked and shook his head as he gathered up our teacups and flatware.  And kitty said, "Ah, John is there, I hear.  You're well."  "Very."  "And you'd stay on?"  "I'd like to, one more night."  "How are you feeling?  Quickly if you will, I can't talk."  "It's brilliant, quiet.  And your brother is reacquainting himself with watercolours, I'm practising a bit of portraiture on them both.  I miss you terribly but thank you for the card."  "Of course.  Do take care, it is -- precisely as I wrote."  "I know, thank you.  The rest when I see you?"  (J had seen me looking at that card, I'd nearly lost it, I was so touched, and just then he walked in with a towel for me -- I had my guard down, he thought I was in pain -- so he was on topic, there, too.  Hell, we're nearly brothers, by proxy.  I needn't analyse.  But I don't often get a chance to share my happiness, at all, so I'm not moderate.)  "Shall I pass on your compliments to Her Grace?" M asked me.  "Please do.  A thousand?"  "Yes."  "So I'll let you go."  I rang off and J started washing up.  "You...all right?"  "I don't know how you are when you're away from him, but certainly not like this, I'm sorry."  "Well I don't like it, weird shit happens."  Another absolutely ridiculous moment, just then -- S came in with Chernobog in his hand, and may it be said, that hand had seen better.  J swore and S took the bird back outdoors -- he'd wanted me to hold it.  "Sod those -- almost shit in here, saw that?" 

I told M today (again) that we really might go to the seaside together. He likes Burnham Market but remarked that his reputation at a certain favourite boutique hotel there had been "compromised" a year before and he'd have to find another (?) "The next time I am shipping off, you must come along, at least part of the time, like in Arbon?  I missed every part of you and every mannerism, habit, scent, preference, timbre of voice, your humour, wit and immediate understanding.  Your hair, your quick eyes, noble features, the line of your jaw where it meets your neck -- I wanted it near my lips a hundred times.  Your chest -- badly needed as I didn't have anything proper to rest on and kiss.  And your stomach, darling.  Hips, thighs, knees, all needed.  Toes, suckable.  The arches of your feet, needed, too.  Separately, though together I could have --"  "Yes --"  "I wanted you both nights, both ways.  I'd really have left them, you know."  He smiled.  "Let them fumble about here without you for a few days sometime so we can be perfectly alone."  He put his arms around me and held me as though I'd been returned to him, yet again, and petted my neck and shoulders, inhaling gently against my hair, near my ear, until he turned my chin upward and pressed a line of kisses over my cheek to my mouth that were a bit wetter and more lingering than a renewed welcome, and I opened my mouth to his and it got very intense, very quickly -- exactly as I'd been imagining him, randy and breathing almost verbally, asking in sighs and moans for more contact.  When he isn't holding back at all and he slides his fingers in my clothes or takes my hand, and shows me what he needs, and how urgently, I can't keep my head together.  I let him lap over my mouth and tongue and when he pushed his fingers down into my trousers, where they're notched just above my arse, I unbuttoned them (the ones from Frederick with buttons down the calves, made for foreplay with a leg and arse man, brilliant work) and he grasped my arse cheeks rather hard.  "You need a suck," I whispered, and he nodded so gently I could have missed it except I'd never miss assent where his prick is concerned, no.  

I was on my knees in a heartbeat, eating him down.  It was the first time I ever sucked him to orgasm in his office with him standing by the door, rather unable to resist fucking my throat.  It should be a daily thing -- very intense, fast sucks of that beautiful pale pink prick of his, oh yes.  He is bloody big.  Just.  Tonight we can start all over again.  Maybe a little fuck as well.  I'm driving myself mad, here.  Pen, don't, my hand cannot be trusted.  Proof?


	83. Age and time

_30\. Aug._

Arrhythmia yesterday afternoon.  It comes on occasionally (whenever) granted, though this was tiring & nauseating (mercifully, only about four hours).  Unrelated fact which added oil to the flames:  I'd forgotten to machine-test my INR on the 28th.  M also overlooked it and is still fuming, at himself, over his own 'error'.  I pointed out that such awful things were happening elsewhere and should we really be winding ourselves up over a little blood test!  Oh, that was not the right tack, and he got even darker.  Gladys drew a tube to run a comparison, as my machine showed 3.3 in the morning, good -- since the first fluttering started at three-thirty in the afternoon once M and I had got home from a special assembly about risk management in carbon sales given wartime scenarios, based mainly on M's work.  We were intending to take a little rest + tea.  He'd received cinnamon cakes straight from Antwerp with sticky honey icing and stuffed with honey-almond paste in a white paper carrier bag.  So lovely of him.  He spoils me like mad, always.  (And.  We didn't get to them until today.) 

He settled in with his papers on the sofa and asked me to stay close because I'd got a chill and he wanted to have me in his arms as much as possible, it seemed, not that I didn't want to oblige. 

(That position, with him dressed down, propped on pillows, legs spread, slender me within them, though not curled up this time, means any fidgeting of mine rubs at him.  Thus one fidgets!)

I love to open his shirt as well.  He knows my tricks and does nothing to prevent them.  He is delicious.  He tries to read along as though nothing, and finally I get a raised eyebrow or a longer exhalation -- "Alex-an-der....") Yesterday neither of us could go in for anything more, though I thought of it plenty.  A welcome distraction. 

We went through the official letters he underwrites (another form of policy shaping, ha).  Some of them.  He appreciates my correspondence style, book, lest you doubt me.  He says it is "emotionally persuasive to a particular profile" he dislikes composing for.  So I dictate proposed replies and he notes them -- mentally, of course, while studying satellite pictures and graphs -- for later dictation to Andrea or another.  (I only did four, because I was dizzy and needed to quiet down.  The valve broadcasted enough of the truth for us both.  When it was getting particularly uncomfortable he rubbed  my back and thighs, as I was curled up, and reminded me *not* to curl up (circulation/thrombosis, bleh).  He'd put the papers away by then and calmly told me a number of lovely stories, mainly from the Middle East.  Soon they were delivered in a voice so strained I was tempted to stop him but chose not to.  I did remind him he'd nearly stopped breathing.  Part of it was the subject matter we were looking through.

Some of those stories he told were his own, I'm sure.  His ability to pull together analogies and allegories, many of them with classical and literary underpinnings, has always impressed me.  And when he is speaking to people, who waste hundreds of words, right and left (myself among them, see above and below), he is axiomatic, startlingly clear.  A beacon of reason.  I love him so dearly for all of that.  I must have said it at least five times in the day but he was pleased, not annoyed at the repetition, ha.

On the subject of beacons:  I remember that one of the first stories yesterday was about sending a fiery bird into the heavens to illuminate the path of a night traveller -- it was so beautiful I had to kiss him and tell him a few things.  And I thought of our S, who J calls his "phoenix" -- once even in front of me. 

The pills don't do much, and never have, so it was a waiting game.  There is no better way to field the thoughts that always hit at irregular angles, in moments like those, than to hold him more tightly, stay quiet, and try not to lose it, as one does.  I wish this wouldn't come on, I'd hoped it would be better, with time.  Delusion, factor of denial.  Another of M's quotations I cannot recall correctly/do justice to.  

He called Rodney at about eight, when it appeared things were evening out, meaning me walking on my M's arm like a girl, wrapped in one of his lighter topcoats.  And he held me up in the lift.  I was so sleepy & I asked him to stay (he never had all night), and though he was not prepared in the least, he ordered the car for the morning, made do.  And stripped off, took a shirt from among my silks (he looked amazing in a simple black shirt, quite different) & shared my bed.  

He has unresolved anxiety over age & time -- perhaps from his own parents' deaths, from loneliness at critical times when he might have offered something else, of himself.  He seems to feel like too much has passed him by, that he wishes he'd found me sooner (no, he does not -- I was even more a wreck) though in terms of accomplishments, honestly!  He is the silent eye of the English political/intelligence hurricane -- yet he has alluded to 'age' several times as if it needled him.  "Time passes equally for us all, darling. Yet when I was eighteen, twenty-five, thirty, it seemed abstract to carry on so long, when it is actually the most natural thing. Oh, this is very natural," I said, when he was in my arms, in bed.  (Or I in his.)  "Alexander."  "It's better than it was, earlier on.  Kiss me, I'm better, now.  You can hear that I am."  "I might say right now that I 'would not bear the thought of your loss', Alexander.  But it was there even today, parallel to the gratitude, comfort, arousal, amusement."  "I'm sorry it's worrying you."  "There are no grounds for apology though it is worrying."  "Let's think about something else?"  "About how I want to keep you," he whispered, kissing my cheek in the dark, running his lips over my face, until he found my mouth and let our tongues meet again and again.  The most beautiful kisses.  Need, and completion, again and again.  The best sort.  My kitty's lips are very soft, and I feel them that way most where the teeth are just behind, a bite or smile in hiding.  Whoever has the chance to see my skin (and only a collapse would lend the occasion to trusted help, so we shall not set the scene too carefully --) will not see the very signs that matter most to me.  The lack of signs, his gentleness.

Somehow I fell asleep, though I doubt he did.  The truest gentleman there ever was.  He would breathe for me.  If he did, I would want one to be half of my last.  I will never tell him such horrible thoughts but I have them, we all have moments like that, don't we, & hopes tied to death, that it will be soft & quiet & not in the delirium & chaos of a body harrowed by pain signals.

The abandon I feel.  Even (what an awful word, like 'but' after praise) after '*no* situational advantage to *that* construct' I need him to know, better than he does now.  Yet the artist's nature as recorder is at odds with the requirement of hiding things.  

Actually, I set out to write something else.  My point, because there is one, look carefully:  I would want people to know, that M loves, that he is loved, at least that we are close associates, close friends.  That he is not friendless.  Instead, it will all be hidden, from everyone but a few well-trusted staff and his own brother, and his brother's husband.  And Carly.  Who doesn't know kitty's name, much less who he works for, what his role is, and actively wants to forget him, openly tells me to leave him.  He's said it three times.  Keep "thrice" at a distance, thank you very much. 

This is more complicated.  I'm thinking of Uncle Henry and it's pulling things out of my heart.  I'm letting it.  Henry choking in this very place, at this table, at this window, last moments spent looking helplessly at a city that had no idea he was in distress -- had been eating too quickly so he could go keep writing -- a love song, perhaps for lovers, whose secrets are entrusted to each other, or only to art.  He was loved, he loved, he wanted, he gave, he was wanted. 

Every moment for death is the wrong one, it always comes as a surprise.  

 

_31\. Aug._

Went to the centre with A2 in tow, to have my hair trimmed around the ears though left the top a bit longer so I can comb it off my forehead.  The greyer the more unruly.  I shall not have a receptive audience if I ever complain, though kitty is splendid as he is, not a steely hair on his proud head at fifty ("I manage to lose them in time, apparently").  I'd not change him at all and he knows it, or he'd better or he'll hear it all over again.  Well, jeans would be welcome.  Temporarily.  The buttoning sort that unbutton.  Anyhow.  I once brought kitty some bay rum shaving soap to replace one he didn't care for and I decided to extend the aura to his hair, with dressing creme by the same maker.  When I could, I asked A2 to watch the door and picked up a new pot of mineral shadow in a sort of grey that shimmers from translucent pearl grey/celadon to olive.  Tomorrow is a memorial and sitting on the occasion of the anniversary of the Wielun attack on civilians as well as an official statement of apology.  I will be in the olive suit which I believe my M is more than partial to.  Later on, another olive & me in the longish shirt he gave me from Argentina, white pants.  Or without?  The shoes, should the mood strike.  Some days it is enough to think of them. 

I.  Need.  Him.

M was unsettled and practically would not stop to eat all day so what can one expect.  His mind is flying with information.  Phone call after memo after -- oh, Lord.  Codes.  Dozens.  The rage in him, barely concealed in time.  I don't know how else to write this.  The HA protein strand found in samples recovered at the site of the abandoned "second but prime" (referred to informally -- by -- ? -- as site 2P) laboratory in Syria has been declared *engineered* avian flu, of all hideous things, a mutation resembling the sort of virus seen in 1918, according to those who worked with preserved samples of tissue, carrying traces of said genetic material.  M can hardly bring himself to talk about the developments with me though they are changing dynamically. He is trying to stay on top of events that no one person should have to. 

Two months have passed since the fatally-planned raid and not a single individual has been linked to transport/movement of substances into Europe.  "Thrice airborne," he remarked, over dinner at his place (I corralled him into eating, a few minor threats needed, to get him to sit down, mercy.)  "A so-named 'bird flu', similar to the H5 with no intermediary host."  Later:  "The origin of the material is perhaps the most 'ultra' and scandalous in itself, Alexander, we know where the compromise took place, measures have been taken.  A hardy strain:  it survives in the air after a cough or sneeze slightly longer than a usual virus -- that alone ensures devastating spread.  There are no available vaccines or therapies as the current antivirals seem useless in mice....  We are behind, weeks!  The third aspect?"  (No significant bird deaths noted in agriculture, nor in the wild bird populations.  Intelligence checks medical and environmental data three times daily, from the United States, Russia, Northern Africa, and Europe.  Nothing.  No reports of flu symptoms among passengers flying internationally.)  How many died in that pandemic, after WWI?  Nearly a third of the world was infected.  Possibly six percent of the world died, the mortality rate was enormous, up to 20% death rate. 

I dragged him outdoors for a tea at sunset in the garden and asked him to stay out and breathe.  "Blast," he muttered.  "Sorry?"  "Factors, maddening."  "Yes, darling, I know." "Don't think I have not considered all reasonable scenarios."  "You have, of course. Walk with me, come, I'm glad we have a moment."  "That you are." "I've half a mind to kiss you, right here." "Half." "Though I may have underestimated. Come, you're far too handsome to keep under an umbrella."

This, dear volume, is me trying to cheer him.  Ha.  Barely managing, let's be honest.  I don't want anything to disturb that dear man.  Anything more, I should say.  Yet I manage to worry him, which came out randomly, again.  Or not so randomly?

He started it.  "Ah.  A member of the security committee is among your latest admirers, though she has no idea who you are aside from your status as an advisor, occasionally seen in my company.  Your records are difficult to obtain."  "What?"  "Your identity is selectively protected."  "I see I have given up some more things?"  "Yes, you have.  In the interest of your safety."  "And your reputation," I said, without thinking.   

He frowned but did not deny it.  He cannot.  "Kitty.  Nobody will know when I am --"  "Gone?  I will, among others, that much hasn't changed.  Alexander, listen to me.  I want that you are well cared for."  "I am."  "Safe.  Sound, constructive, satisfied."  "I know."  "In exchange, your discretion and acceptance."  I decided to withdraw, there is no sense in sparring over the fact we don't show anyone what we are.  So I said, "You're brilliant at all that.  Thank you.  Very.  Much.  I adore you, for everything in your heart.  What you show and don't show, too.  And even putting up with...."  But it went to hell & I started, rather badly, and he continued.  "Before you go any further down that path, remember that, as I've implied, I prefer all the 'noisiness', day and night, to silence, if I couldn't bear to hear it, why would I keep you nearest while working through the worst of it, if not the solace in the authenticity of your conversation, the ticking, your nocturnal interviews with memories, these tears -- don't, don't cry now, waking and in sleep, your -- forward sensuality?  You should be aware.  You are aware.  Don't, no.  Ah.  I may as well --" he bit something back and his eyes glittered with unexpected emotion.  "'Command a maelstrom to be quiet'," I tried to quote back to him what he'd said, about his mind and work, when he'd been so pleased but surprised that I'd accepted him -- after he'd told me at the Glen Burns under the stairs that he wanted this, with me.  He smiled and put an arm around my back.  "'To silence itself by evening'," he said.  Because he doesn't forget anything.  Fortunately.  "Kitty, and what did I tell you after that?  Do you remember?"  "'Nemo est tam fortis, quin rei novitate perturbetur', from a favourite fragment of 'The Gallic Wars', and I could hardly believe my own ears.  To be honest," he said through his teeth, but it was a not a mockery of my speech, just a turn of phrase that added a spark to things, of familiarity, friendship.  "More profound than what you'd got from me in hospital, kitty.  Well.  Assuredly."  Echoes of each other's mannerisms, again.  He laughed, suddenly, and made me jump.  "Are you sure?" he remarked, gave me the kerchief from his pocket -- they all know me -- and put his arms around me to pet my head.  "Alexander," he said, "one more thing.  Your moods are shadowy, the peaks and drops sharper than before, you'll tell me your thoughts, please."  "Always."  

Yes, I am as unnerved by the idea of this flu as I was in 2009.  Ah, well.  Shall I frighten myself, now?  What a waste of a "now" -- I'd much rather kiss my ginger kitty and finish a drawing.  He cannot bear to hear that.  He doesn't understand my reasoning.  Perhaps because it isn't 'reasoning'.  It is called faith, and Our Lord is good and just.


	84. Like royalty

_03\. Sept._

M insisted I sleep alone last night, at my place, to ensure I'd -- well, not certain of the rationale, now.  (Perhaps so I'd not look like the best-shagged in the room when sketching -- plan foiled, kitty.)  I laugh in the general direction of you, pen, but this morning I was a horny mess, indeed. I'd had dreams.  Oh, what dreams. 

I was up in the night.  I avoid writing some things (health!) because, book, I'd much rather focus on my kitty than on the wailing of my intestines or headaches or the fact that my knees and ankles creak when I forget to drink enough, or that I bruise from eye contact.  Damn it.  Well.  I had dreams, and I recall the sight of my own cock sinking repeatedly into my kitty, who I had rested in shirtsleeves on his chest, on a tabletop of black marble that seemed to undulate when I looked down at it and might have been our bed, &c.  His hair was even more strikingly auburn, and longer, and he was very vocal.  My impression was we'd run away together, somewhere.  And I had him for ages, and he loved it.  In fact I'd not put him through that but it was a visual I could not push away when I was showering.  Nor when he arrived.

I ought to write about one of the highest honours I've had in my life and my mind is such that I push back those things and rattle on all around them, instead.  Ech.

My reception at the Palace -- unforgettable, and I was treated with model courtesy I certainly did not warrant on my own.  In some ways it reminded me of the Equinox party setting, but quiet.  And all the bits of reading and re-learning address and precedence paid off -- in such situations I realise what I owe whom, that I can even stand/bow in the presence of the Duchess herself and speak -- above all, Mum, Grandmother, Eustace, Auntie Claudia & dear Henry, S, Randall, and my ginger kitty.  Who would I be without the fortune of having each of them? Even if not for as long as I'd fancied I needed?  My dear Mum.  OMG.

Not doing well, yet.  I'll pick this up.

21:14     Carrying on.  M was professionally formal with the secretaries as he would be anywhere but was warmer later on.  I wasn't drawing long, perhaps half an hour, after which I sat off to the side to finish while the others took tea in the most exquisite little blue and gold cups you've ever seen.  The topics escape me, now, I was nervous.  There was something concerning islands in the autumn and sorts of spices that are being diverted to other areas of the world, increasingly -- I shouldn't talk about any of it much though it was a great privilege, and more than lovely to hear my work from the Equinox party in March referred to, that some remember it -- and of course, the book that kitty and I made, which was the inspiration for asking me over for today's sitting. 

I'm winding myself up & not making any sense, I can feel it.  The point is, this drawing was done because my work was admired.  OMG, they also discussed the upcoming exhibit at the Tate.  Which went straight to my gut.  Display.  The honour.

Something else was getting me through that entire meeting, which could have unnerved me for good if I'd not had a...singular conversation in the morning, when M came to my flat. 

(Love.  If only I could express it better, and I must work on it.  I am nearly bursting, I can't.)

You see, dear volume, having the night alone meant I'd got ideas -- I'd asked M to come see me, possibly for breakfast (though he did not join me that early) and when he arrived he was initially annoyed I'd not dressed.  He found me finishing groats, apples and honey, in the cobalt silk gown, which wasn't closed & seemed to want to fall off, for reasons.  One being that it has heavy sleeves in relation to the shoulders, the other -- being.  Ha.  Once he'd half-heartedly bent over and re-tied it and had stepped back, and set about controlling the line of his lips, I asked, while I finished my tea (he wouldn't sit and have any), "Are you taking that umbrella to the Palace?"  He raised it, examined the tip and replied, "Yes.  Clothes?"  "Darling, they won't search us?  Meaning -- they won't pat me down?"  I sort of smiled like a worried innocent & finally caught his inquisitive attention, the best sort -- I have to write this down because I want to remember how he looked when I stood up from the table and closed in on him -- amused and definitely hopeful, while trying to maintain a waning focus on leaving the house in good time.  That being the goal, of course -- leave Great Peter Street with Mr. A. G. A. Nussbaum, portraitist, in tow, in a state allowing for sketching HRH.  He set the umbrella aside and drew even closer so that my vision was blurring.  "Now what will you have hidden from us?" he asked in a near-whisper, and smoothed the hair on the back of my head before cupping my neck in his palm, "Will you not tell me until later?"  Oh, Lord, what a kiss I got then, I'd have told him whatever.  And he held me very close to his chest as soon as I made a sound that reminded him he might remind me to...dress.  "Dress me," I moaned (yes, I did, it was impossible), "as you like.  Please.  For the appointment at the Palace, choose everything, underneath, too."  "The green tweed, a casual affair, cooler today."  A few kisses to my temple.  "Casual...Lord.  Are you certain?"  M nodded, his nose just touching my hair.  "Kitty.  I know I should be thinking of...Gracious Mother, you are heavenly this morning.  What is that scent?"  "The usual, and that hair dressing, from you."  A bit of a move, to get his other hand from my hip to my arse, but he indulged us both, even while trying to stop himself smiling.  (Oh, book, don't.  If you knew how he looks when he's got his shirt open, and I didn't have the pleasure of touching him at all last night, I'd have torn it open just then.)  "Alexander, we have less than three hours, we might stop by the club, please.  Dress."  "Green it is.  But the rest?"  It took him all of a second to affirm, "The blue ones."  "Blue...pants?  Garters?"  "The first of the stockings."  "Hnnn, the ones you chose.  Just for me."  "Yes.  In Geneva."  "Geneva.  Seriously!  You might have told me in Arbon."  "It was a deduction," he said, cheeks warming against mine, "made by dint of Parsons' photographs.  Among the more arousing images I'd seen, which I was not ready to accept."  "Were you -- jealous?  Put off?"  "There were no grounds for either, no.  Uncertain as to the direction of our intimacy, more accurately." 

"This way," I literally growled.  I took his chin in my fingers and kissed him until he smiled and then licked deep in his mouth until he was gasping, holding my arse to pull me closer.  "Put them on my legs for me and take my thighs, kitty."  "I -- cannot...say I've put stockings on another person," he replied.  "Ambiguous...."  "Alexander."  "I'll put them on -- would you like to see?"  "Mmhm."  His mouth was pressed on my throat.  "But it's not quick, unrolling them up my calves."  "It's...certainly not?"  "Straightening the back seams just so."  I untied the robe and slipped out of it as he wanted, going by his eyes, which were becoming dangerously sharp and present, the way I love most.  So I was starkers backing toward my kitchen doorway.  Should one feign modesty?  Why not, it makes for a good start.  "I missed you last night," I told him.  (Grind a bit against palm, yes, it was too easy with him right there.)  "Much?" he asked, following.  His breath on my cheek, in a moment.  So close again.  I wanted a fuck but I couldn't, I needed something, though. Nerves. His bearing just then was working on me.  Book, judge not, you've not seen him that way, it would snap you.  "Kitty, I want to get dressed for you but first --"  "Yes?"  "So elegant -- you can't just --"  "Just -- ?"  "No, not enough time for a little shag, and you're so --"  "Alexander."   "Watch me, though?  Kiss me and let me."  His breathing was affected already, deepening, and he didn't have to answer with more than a look (oh, you should see him).  "Nobody will be able to tell, will they?  What you watched me do?"  "Not likely -- the imagination -- no."  "Have you ever watched a boy bring himself off, just for you?  Hnnn, kitty."  He closed his mouth, exhaled rather shakily through his nose.  "Not -- no."  "You can look." He rested his forehead on my shoulder. I couldn't take my eyes off of what I could still see of him, so stately, dressed to visit royalty, after all.  "This one loves you very much," I said, and stroked myself harder, but it felt so good I nearly bit my tongue.  And he was right there, very focused, there was only one way it could end.  "Does he," he said, more softly, with his lips very close to my ear.  "And thinking of you.  The way you tease.  Inside and out.  Both at once, too.  Or thinking of your lips.  Yes, like you are, now, yes, all over those places I love, oh Lord, yes.  Or your voice, even over the encrypted line.  It's sex --"  "Is it."  "Yes, kiss me some more.  You might have called last night, I couldn't find my place here, at all.  Oh, God.  You see?  How it is?  Yours?  So many thoughts.  And when I imagine you."  "How?"  "Between my knees, or just over my shoulder, the way you say you love me, each time differently -- or when you -- were behind me, the mirror --?"  Oh my God, it was beyond scorching hot, he couldn't take his eyes off my hand.  Well.  He kissed me and I needed another quick wash, but he didn't protest in the least, by then -- and licked and kissed some of the moisture from my shoulders while I tried to towel off in front of him.  He couldn't manage anything or I'd have given him my throat.  Poor dear, the work is so hard on him now, it affects him and he worries I feel slighted.  He said it that way.  "How can I feel slighted by your body?  Honestly!  Were you paying any attention, earlier?" I asked.  He laughed helplessly against my neck.  So frustrated, though.  "And now you *must* dress immediately."  "Must I?  I'd like more kisses, in fact."  "Put your clothes on, we will certainly not visit the club en route."  Ha.  Pity.

I got out the stockings.  He couldn't watch any more so I didn't draw things out.  I was dressed to the nines in seven minutes.  Not a record.  Even so, one of the best little morning interludes, ever.    

At the Palace, though.  I started from that.  How I ever managed to smile my way through.  Now you know.  Love, stockings.  True love, blue stockings, ha.  I am awful but it was so funny.  No disrespect intended, of course, but one must find a way to cope.  Randall's methods were also helpful.

I'd asked if I'd be able to use my own pencils and M had confirmed that I would, so when it came time to remove them from my jacket pocket I made sure he was standing next to me.  The cobalt blue silk ribbon he'd tied my ankles with recently...held my supplies aesthetically, I must say.  I moved to hand it to M, who scarcely nodded.  "Or.  No."  I tucked it in my inner pocket in my jacket.  (Mine, you will be.  Oh, yes, kitty.)  M didn't as much as raise a brow.  How he does that I cannot divine.  When we were alone again, in his car, he took me in his arms and smiled.  "You are impossible."  "I'm a quick study?"  "Yes."  He rubbed his hand over the wide, soft band on my upper thigh.  "When," he said.  "In your foyer.  These -- two," I said, and chose two favourite fingers on his right hand.   I wanted to suck them but he leaned in faster and groaned as he pulled my mouth open with his thumb.  "You need more," he whispered, breaking the kiss to breathe.  He was so open, then, staring so deeply into my eyes.  I wanted to dive into his heart, he was wonderfully *there* with me.  "You.  As much of you as you can."  "We'll try," he murmured, "I might take --"  "No pharma, it's murder to the heart.  The more the faster, but your fingers are brilliant, too, you know I love them, I'd ride them right here, if."  He grunted in frustration and we kissed some more.  "Alexander, my delayed congratulations -- well done, all of it, later on we'll -- summarise," he finally said, gesturing loosely behind us, implying the portrait.  I felt engaged, or something, to be honest, I was on such an adrenaline high.  "You were lovely, there, thank you for organising everything today, for the introductions, it was the most delightful -- ever --"  And he shut me up with more tonguing that left me melted to the seat. 

Poor Rodney, he must have some idea of what we get up to, or he'd not take such long routes home, yet if he knew how close we were sometimes, he'd probably pull over and leave us in the nearest alleyway.  We did get out of the car, not that we even wanted to.  And it needed time and a lot of tongue work but once I'd tied his wrists at the hearth tonight, and wound him up with plenty of love, I fucked him first and then rode his gorgeous prick in his lap, in low firelight & while we both know it shouldn't matter quite that much, it really did, enough that I started crying for us both, just after.  I'm better now. We must, must keep the anxiety down, even if it is part of a heavy ore rich in happiness, as well.  So much is happening that it won't be easy.  Then again, must it be?  This is life.

23:40     Another day, of life.  Are we not the most fortunate of lovers?  Midnight is approaching and this has been such an excellent time, I'd like to bask a little more.  I think I hear him coming back to bed.  All the better.  Good night.


	85. For worse, for richer

_07\. Sept._

"In response, a soft-landing refusal for revised quotas, please.  Here -- reject the prescriptive analytic angle in operational management proposed by Hans Streuler.   A note to Mr. Mors that the layout algorithms for civil security planning, namely the evacuation models, are out of date and incompatible with the multi-objective routing module being implemented in the New Year.  Suggest non-linear optimisation.  And I'm taking you to the Haveline for supper in a hour and a half."  So it was. Has been. The last several days we've hardly had a moment to ourselves.   Writing, calling, meetings.  I don't know how many letters I've drafted this week but it's becoming second nature and I have more leeway in what gets said to whom.  He keeps me close (metaphorically and physically) and I like it (a chance to speak) though it means spontaneously taking on the role of expert, visitor, or secretary.  Mercy, I wonder if any of them know my true name?  Imagine, book -- M said, as we were walking toward an office off D. St. where 11 people were debating carbon ratios for an air-quality package, "You need a name."  "George Lexbaum?  Bertie Nuttertree?"  "What did you call your tutor behind his back?" he asked, pulling out his watch for a glance as we strode down a marble-floored corridor.  "Eustace the Paler?  Oh Lord, no."  "And.  Joint reductions are the preferred line in binding targets," he said in a voice I rarely hear in public, from him.  "What does that mean?" I asked, glancing about.  "Synergy of resource development and market consolidation in negotiations for a low-carbon economy model.  In ten years' time, it won't be upheld, anyhow." He swept open a heavy oak door near us. He said, gesturing toward me, "Gentlemen, a word from Sir Eustace Depaler of emissions diplomacy, joint fulfilment and conciliatory post-fulfilment policies." 

Dear volume, as my filthy mind rolled around that job description, I had about four seconds to project my areas of expertise.  Well.  They'd all looked up, with interest, so M turned to me.  "The current line, if you will."  I opened my mouth: "Governance structures, where applicable, ought to be transparent, in order to avoid unnecessary administrative burden in the -- binding target development...?  And fully uphold other member states' freedom. In establishing their energy mix on a domestic forum first.  Toward the low-carbon economy model, in an environment of -- joint -- ehh, reductions." I nodded to M to take over.  He shrugged.  "I see no need for drawing this out.  Reduce the administration time to thirty days, a conciliatory decision on resource development will be delivered by the new sitting, prepare.  Carry on."  We left.  I could have screamed.  "Well done," he said softly, a full half-yard away, as he looked out a nearby leaded-glass window with feigned abstraction.  I clapped my hand over my forehead, literally. He was flirting, you know.  This is him, I can't even.  "That was horrid, absolute rubbish advisement.  The only part that has stayed in my head is 'joint fulfilment'."  "That's all that matters."  "When are we going home, darling?"  I whispered. I got a little twitch of the eyebrow out of him.  "I've called the car."

"The reason you fancy you'd be a poor agent?" he said, setting his umbrella aside and sliding a hand behind my neck as Rodney slammed the car door shut after us.  "The valve -- I cannot sneak up on anyone. The bleeding, you know, during fist-fights on rooftops.  The sleep-talking when I -- well.  I could perform exorcisms, in Latin, though that's not generally needed in the field."  He sniffed a laugh. "We value versatility." It's not much different from my favourite escapist strategies, is it:  "it's a film, it's just a film, you are just acting, behave accordingly."  S would enjoy watching me at all this -- I'm sure I could learn loads from him, if only we could talk about it.  Mercy.  In the end, book, M assures me there are no consequences among people who do not bother/think to verify who I am -- he even tests them that way.  "They deserve no more than the performances they choose to believe in place of true information gathered independently."  "Well, I'm sure they don't mean to be ignorant," I said, and he exhaled and glanced away, eyes falling closed, as I realised what I'd said.  Ah, well.  

\---

Three empty spaces.  The first being the one I left at the end of the Kirthward-Ebbnorth letter because you'd not stated your decision.  The second, the silence when you broke off the argument, and I do appreciate your restraint. 

\--- no.

Three empty spaces.  First, the end of the letter this morning.  Second, the end given to the argument.  Third:  the interior cavity of my mouth.  My mouth was closed, so its insides might have escaped attention, but not yours, no, you knew I still wanted you all the same.  You knew:  what you did next, that sudden kiss, that I would need air, gulp for it, open my lips, that you could kiss me deeply, tell me, words spoken against my tongue, or in my mouth.  I love you so dearly and may we always interrupt stubbornness and other flights of the ego with kisses like those, yours, please, may we end every day that way for all my life, secretly if it must be so, loudly if we ever may?  Yours forever

 ---

 

_09\. Sept._

Last evening, I told kitty what I was certain he'd be pleased to hear:  "We'll need your fingers, and my throat for what I've got for you, tonight."  I had sheet music, you see.  (Yes, I'm awful.)  I brought over some of Henry's songs from the halcyon days of his radio career because they have been running through my head, making me nostalgic for some singing, like family singing, the way people did.  Or did in my circle.  And I asked M to play some for me, not certain he'd agree after being teased that way.  (Minimal grumbling and only one brief eye roll.)  We sat down on that little bench and he played after supper and I held the inside of his thigh (hard, from all that running, delicious) or rubbed his back on pretences of keeping him on the seat.  He liked listening, even though he does not like playing much, because he slips here and there ("Blasted D again...").  And I can still turn pages and attempt to sing with feeling, and he did not silence me, so. 

...The moon still aglow behind a cloud // The din of the dance in a merry crowd // Their joy a grand, familiar refrain // But my heart won't carry that tune again... // So no better time than now this eve // To take up my coat and beg for their leave // When there is no love in the world, you see // No wrongs would make it right, to me...  (c. 1979)

There are dozens of songs as melancholy as that one but they were sung by a quartet and in a light-hearted style -- I wondered what that would require of an artist, & who my uncle may have had in mind.  And I was so grateful to be where I was, with the man I love, regardless of the difficulties inherent in our public appearances together/not-together.

So although last night was comforting and quiet, tonight I kissed him in the car the whole way home and wouldn't let him read.  He let me do so.  He closed his eyes as I went in for his neck where I'd just loosened that Whitehall noose of a tie.  The way he nods when his tongue fails him.  Like every time is the first, again.  You will please me, just open your mind and quiet it down, gorgeous ginger.  I made a study of shoulder freckles and I am to be envied for my discoveries.

 

_10\. Sept._

Two exchanges about patience.  They share a common thread, that my kitty is working too much. 

The first:  I love him.  I told him and he closed his eyes and shook his head a bit as though I'd distracted him with something trivial, when I try every day not to, and he knows that.  I stood up to get ready to leave and he was up in a moment and intercepted me.  "Not yet."  "Could you bring it home to my place?  We could look at it in bed?" I suggested.  "These cannot be taken further."  He gestured back at his desk.  "I'd like to eat something light and go to sleep," I said, "but at my place.  I've got things, I've not got anything on paper today, I have --"  "A need to be alone."  "Actually, no, I'd like to spend some time, with you.  If you're not able to answer now, that's all right."  "We'll go in forty minutes."  "I could go on ahead."  He put his hands in his pockets, a gesture I do not care for.  "Your patience, Alexander."  "If today isn't the day, perhaps another day will be?  To take my lover home, straight away?"  I sketched his face, which was devoid of emotion, akin to a mess of cinders and lines from stress.  Later I held it up for him to see, like a mask over my face.  Not terribly funny, I guess.  "And what am I missing in yours?" he asked, and tried to look at my eyes until he bent the corner of the drawing, for which he apologised.  "I'll make you another, though it won't be the same," I told him, "I'd see to that.  I'd want your eyes far different than these.  And kitty ears."  I got tickled at the waist for that, but we did not go home for another hour and a half or so. 

The second, when I said:  "I'm not comparing someone to you, because you're the most important and I don't need to, but I compare myself, and how I felt, is that not the most natural thing?"  Those remarks displeased him for all the wrong reasons -- that he doesn't give me what I need, re. switching, and other things.  He said, "Where something is lacking, all the more so."  Since he is usually more confident than that, at least assured by what he reads in my emotions, I asked him if we could talk about Oxford.  Again.  He told me, among other things, that the oddness (and Porto, careful initiation &c) had made the first time more tolerable than expected, but that the second time had been far worse.  He tried to summarise it, in as few words as possible, to close an unwieldy subject neatly:  the fullness makes him seize up, even sending signals of choking and nausea.  I replied that he can learn to control it.  He glanced at me.  "I was able to, so you'd manage," I said, wincing to myself, but is there any sense in pretending he has no knowledge of who/when?  It requires willpower, and openness (I couldn't enjoy it until I had C, trust is the point.)  Some of the effort can be left to me.  "Either way, I'm so happy," I whispered in his ear -- "that it's you, that you're here, do you understand?"  "And you would give up a broad part of yourself," kitty told me, nodded and kissed the crown of my head, "which is why..."  "Why...?  Mmm."  That was me, articulating nothing.  He looked down at his hands and sighed, "Not.  Frequently."  "And.  And.  If you liked the heels...?"  "Yes."  "Me too, mmmm, I'd love it again."  "It hurt you."  "This time I won't lean back, and you'll hold my waist, or let me -- hold something, like the railing, there in Oxford?  That one is so pretty, I thought of it, didn't you?"  Kisses -- he was lighter, already.  "You know what I was imagining there?  When you were younger, the sort of fantasies you had in that place, to escape a bit, like the one in the archive."  "Abstractions," he said, "as there was no clear object, if we can call it -- that.  But there wasn't a scenario involving a particular person."  "Of all things, you, without a scenario, I cannot believe that."  "Hm."  (Eyes rolled.)  "For whom a set of interlinking circumstances, little stimuli touching off actions, all to get what you like, you know better than most how to create a scenario."  He blinked in silence before remarking, "It was not a priority, to touch off anyone's thoughts, of me."  "Kitty, you had desires."  "Moreover, when one is not at his best, he is easily taken for someone who is over-indulgent, perhaps weak-willed, unhealthy?"  "I understand," I said.  "Breathe," he said, "you're about to yawn, overfocused."  "Over-indulgence.  Weak will," I told him, and got in his lap.  "Put me to bed?"  Well he needed a blow job after all that.  And then I had to.  As you know.  Not sorry you fell on the floor, you're a strong one. 

 

_13\. Sept._

I'd have mentioned in the meantime that the foundation charter has been approved and as one of three donors, I now have a small/big part in furthering journalistic arts for transparency and educational purposes.  The name initially batted about was "Eye On (Ion)" then it descended to "One-eyed Monsters".  As the gallery has its own name, F8&C, the donors gave theirs to the body itself -- Wilcox, Nussbaum and Lund.  Underwritten by another who wishes to remain anonymous (but is instantly recognisable to many).

On the 11th, M took a charter to Brussels on a moment's notice.  He received a call at the club -- then rang off after two minutes or so of exchanging number strings and said, "It is imperative that I be in Brussels.  Preferably in less than five hours from now.  Excuse me, Alexander."  More calls, arrangements.  His eyes were lead-heavy as he watched my reaction.  Apparently I didn't control my face well, at all.  I said, "I'll gladly go along."  "Give me a reason to go, by staying."  "That was not kind," I said, and just as my nose had started to hurt he retorted:  "A misconstrual.  This is no pleasure-holiday and you're staying here for your own good.  Come, please."  A step in his direction, and he met me halfway, to cup my shoulder firmly.  "I ask that you not go into the city centre while I'm away, the situation may change *dynamically*."  "Situation?"  "Alexander."  "I'm meeting Carly tomorrow in Piccadilly, you remember."  "No."  "Then I'll receive him at my flat, which is -- awkward."  "You will delay it three days."  He narrowed his eyes at the wall just behind me.  "Listen," he sighed.  I listened.  Oh Lord, it exactly what I'd thought.  Bird deaths.

"Today we have minor increases in wild bird deaths in Italy, Spain, France, Lichtenstein, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark."  "I'm so sorry."  He blinked at that but continued, "In each case, inland, not at border areas nor in commercial farms.  Yet.  Common sparrows, gulls, and pigeons, the like."  "Belgium?  Kitty?"  "Not yet."  "Well, it is not all in our hands.  But."  I was about to say that I was certain he'd stop it, that it would be all right, but that would have been a blatant lie.  This has been brewing for months and involves hundreds of officials and tens of thousands of tiny movements, decisions, preparations.  Imagine:  members of our secret service creating a body of false research to thwart speculation (by legitimate scientists) regarding to the origin of the virus.  Then there is all the work on emergency budgeting, logistics planning for waves of vaccinations, the destruction of livestock, changes in transport regulations -- I can't even start to name it all, but it's ultra, ultra.  Enormous.  Most people involved have no idea of the true purpose of their work ("when do they ever", kitty says). 

Ech, I wanted to go along, very much.  He could see it, of course.  "Kitty, let me help you pack and I'll see you off from your place," I suggested, and he relaxed a bit --perhaps he'd felt how much I wanted to?  "Please.  Shall we?"  So we did go to his place, packed his suitcase and had him back out his front door twenty minutes after he'd entered.  (And I made sure he'd find a pair of my naughtiest knickers, the white ones, wrapped up in his, ha.)  We kissed just inside the door.  "Ask Gladys for dinner and have Rodney take you home," he said.  "Communication, kitty?"  "Type two.  Now, what is it?"  "Oh, no, nothing.  I won't disturb you.  Come see me first thing, when you're home, tomorrow.  Promise."  "I will.  You're up to something but I can't stay by and deduce it.  It's in the suitcase, though."  Gracious Mother, he reads all my thoughts, I'd swear. 

On our day, he arrived late in the evening, near eight.  He'd not called ahead.  I'd dressed up a bit, telling myself it was for me, the table & the Dresden china.  But I was more than happy to put out a second plate while he pulled the curtains shut.  "Come, eat something, what's happening?"  "To start.  While in Brussels."  "Yes?"  "I was joined in my travels by your -- pants?"  "Ahem, so that's where they've gone?"  "-- They were -- well.  Empty," he said, blushing at the neck right when he realised what I'd meant.  For good measure he backed me against the kitchen table -- something made a dull clunking sound against my water glass and it poured over the side and soaked down between my arse cheeks.  Hell.  "Hell!"  Cold.  Then he was leaning forward and smothering me with kisses all over my mouth and chin (he was smiling, though) while I unbuttoned my trousers to kick them off.  Flying creatures in my bloodstream or some such madness, that's how it felt -- I was losing it, it felt so good to have them off, well, you know.  It was the 12th, honestly.  So.  He whispered something about how he couldn't stop recalling me with my hands on myself when he'd found what I'd sent along.  That I am very pretty.  "Last night it also occurred to me what I like best about travelling alone," he said, brushing aside some longer hairs in my fringe for me.  "A hotel room where nobody snores," I said.  "Homecomings."  "Where somebody snores."  "Yes."  Dinner was small and very sweet.

He had brought me some chocolates for dessert but I kissed him for ages instead.  "Kitty," I said, when I couldn't calm him, "tell me what happened, there."  "Advancements are incremental in Switzerland, Alexander, the dovetailing I'd anticipated with the development schedule is not --" "Not?" "Not there. It is not happening."  His throat was raspy, then, perhaps from the flight, and he coughed.  In bed, he was restless and defocused.  "Darling, let's."  "I'll put you to sleep."  "Nooooo." Not likely. Well.  "I will.  I'm needed elsewhere, this evening."  "All night, though?"  "Close enough.  Keep your strength up."  "I have been, stay a little longer than you're planning."  "I can't."  "Homecoming...."  (He smiled and looked away.)  "Kitty, we can talk as much as you like, nice and slow, stay a bit longer."  "I -- no.  Bear with me.  Please."  "Always."  "Thank you."  "Yes, of course."  


	86. For poorer

_17\. Sept._

A rise in wild bird deaths in England, near Reading, Manchester, Birmingham.  And London, in the vicinities of Heathrow and Gatwick.  The first infections have been reported.  We know of three tonight -- two in Paris, and one in Toledo.  "The first cases -- patients with severe abdominal and respiratory flu symptoms who are not responding to antiviral treatment.  Close to the airports.  We have an eye on it, naturally."  M rubbed his temples as he said that.  He was furious.  The matter is spinning rapidly out of control and the coordination they've all been meeting about for months, in all these travels, might prove to be for naught, he said, though I find that hard to believe.  He advised so many people, so well, I could never be prouder of one man's efforts in the face of such a despicable, carefully engineered act of aggression, and if those in positions of power chose to build upon sand, well. 

He continued, "You must heed instructions should inner-city infections increase in number.  I'm certain we are facing a large outbreak in London and poultry deaths are likely within days, culling is about to begin, it will be very costly, indeed."  "I can only imagine."  He fixed his eyes on me and nodded absently, "You gave your word.  In Arbon."  "What?  Yes.  That I would leave London if you asked.  Though not without you, of course."  "Should you fall ill -- and we shall do what we can to prevent that eventuality -- there will be a place for you.  A critical shortage of hospital beds is inevitable -- the resources are 42 percent behind.  But that place is not in London."  "Where is it, darling?"  "I cannot tell you that.  Should you start to experience any symptoms," he said, swallowing enough saliva to suggest he was nauseated -- I was about to ask if he was all right -- "you must call, you'll state a sequence, and go, regardless of where I am at the time."  "But if --"  "Are you listening?"  "Yes.  The public?  Where are the public announcements?"  "In due time, an information kit has been prepared."  "No, as soon as possible.  Now."  "The antivirals and vaccines are not ready, nor is research fully conclusive, international panic will follow any suggestion of bioengineering.  Enough."  "A panic would be entirely justified!"  "Not so.  Panic leads to blame, blame to aggression.  Renewed rioting, tipped elections!"  "Tipped elections, Mycroft Holmes!  Elections can be postponed or the parliaments dissolved, you've seen to that in Europe before.  Elsewhere, too."  "Yet the increase in nationalist sentiments seen across Europe in recent years means violence in the streets.  And that fire cannot be extinguished so easily, even in the media outlets.  By my models, more attempts of this sort are inevitable, two within five years, backed by entirely different interests.  You know of one.  We spoke of it last evening."  "In bed.  I recall."  "Apologies.  Again."  "Kitty, it was fine."  "Alexander.  It will be about borders once Europe has been weakened by that sort of internal conflict.  Once the Americans shift their priorities any further away from Europe?"  "I know.  But does Tami-flu work?  You said they'd tried antivirals?"  "In the laboratory setting, it has not proven effective."  "Kitty, your brother must mind his birds, so gulls and sparrows can't share their food."  "He'd sooner watch them die, apparently, than listen to reason."  "He treats them like little children, Chernobog stands on his shoulder while he eats dinner, they share buttered toast -- "  (Perhaps I shouldn't have volunteered that bit?)  M closed his eyes and shook his head, though not only in disgust.  "But have you spoken to him, darling?"  "And what do you suppose he said this morning?"  "You might have spoken to John instead."  "The less he knows, the better."  "He's a doctor!"  At that, M exhaled loudly and tapped his pen against his file-pile.  Poor kitty.  I stood between his knees and petted his head, to which he had no objections about time or need for concentration.  It was not a good day.  I'd have gladly stayed over with him.  I'll text him.  Good night, for now, volume.

\---

The pressure, warmth, length, what is behind them in a given moment, in your mind.  The way your mouth tastes.  Your skin, around your lips.  The roughness of it, by evening.  Small, soft folds just behind the long plane of jawbone.  The moment your ear meets that place.  My mouth aches, the way a heart aches in the absence of its best-loved objects.  You are not far away, now.  For years, you were that close, and tonight I reminded myself of that, how you were always just there, and I was here, imagining, just like tonight.

We have the chance, the comfort, dearest ginger kitty, to say "not tonight, another night".  The fortune in that:  can you believe it?  Some days I still cannot. 

I love you.

\---

 

_23\. Sept._

And lately so little time to write or else I wind up separated from you, book, by virtue of going home with kitty straight from work.  I have accumulated a number of shirts (and pants!) at his house, which allows for this (he has none at mine -- should redress *that*), though it is only now I noticed I've wasted food in my refrigerator for the first time in months.  Not the sort of habit one may ever indulge in.  On the topic of indulgences, since I am tetchy at the moment:  M asked me to stop going to mass, and said that touching the shared water in the font is a health risk.

Damn it, book.  Dear, dear one.  Forgive this:  I have nobody to tell about how much I would do.  How it ought to scare me, and would, were it for anyone else.  Nearly every day:  you shall not, you cannot, do not, you mustn't.  No cafes, no centre, no shops, no clinics, no mass.  The garden -- he hardly lets me sit there.  No restaurants, now.  Gladys and Rodney are tested, the Anthonys have restrictions, as well.  I don't go to work with kitty anywhere in the City, either, as of yesterday.

The truth.  There is a system -- we got in a row over it, and I regret to say that today we have not yet spoken to each other, and it's nearly ten in the evening.  I'll write more tomorrow.

 

_25\. Sept._

For the record, he rang at eleven but I'd already fallen asleep and it was a brief exchange. 

I've spoken to Carly and F. Lund frequently re. F8&C, a project I have little to do with aside from statements of approval or suggestions for changes.  I am pleased, however, that it is happening.  Very soon.  OMG.  I am so unable to think about lighting, invitations, press statements, placards, and the like, I want to cry when I see people, any people, even those in Great Peter.  I can hardly bear to watch them walk by.  Is this what it is like to be an agent?  Knowledge nobody can imagine?  That you move among the uninformed.  

There is a system of security alerts, it is very secret.  It has been developed over a number of years, augmented but never reformed.  I've written of this before, volume, but the background to the issue is as follows:  multiple alerts exist for various situations and types of risk/emergency.  They are managed by different agencies.  Mainly existing side by side, with as much as 65% redundancy, according to what kitty estimates, and this wastefulness is tolerated because some persons are privy to tiers of information by virtue of their good birth or fortunes, meaning there is a reason numerous dignitaries/peers/personages turn up in the same establishments, particular evenings).  There are risk notifications that go well beyond the usual scope of rumour.  Kitty makes use of them constantly to encounter/monitor/avoid people.  We, he and I, benefit from it.  It is a form of intelligence that can be manipulated quietly.  But the other side to things:  an enormous advantage in case of emergencies.  The sort of information that can save lives is passed among them, first.  I told kitty that it's immoral and things took a spiral.  I'd not fully understood the extent of his anxiety over me, for one thing.  Ech, it was fanning fire to tell him to lay off it.  At a certain level he felt rejected, simple as that.  It was quite an unpleasant argument, over the "fairness" of certain forms of what I insist is privilege.  The refusal by our highest authorities to provide full facts in the face of what is happening, and will happen, is despicable.  

Now, add the restrictions.  He has done much (more than is reasonable, strictly speaking, and for longer than I'd thought) for my comfort, and I am grateful for all of it, it has changed nearly everything for the better.  And I am fully his.  Even as I write that and look at it, I realise I could be even more so and be even happier in it.  There is no reason to rebel, when I want to assure him and care for him, not play at politics -- there is no margin for games.  But accepting advantages that our fellow citizens have no access to is morally questionable, and staying clear of parts of a city in peril?  Is my problem ridiculous?  I can't even assess that anymore.  I'm quite nervous.

I am writing such rubbish, I should rest.

 

_26\. Sept._

M came to see me this morning at eleven.  I nearly leapt into his arms and he seemed surprised.  But I did not want to prolong that argument.  We did have another sharp exchange in my living room about the risk notifications but this time it ended differently, in a plea from his side.  But it is not easy to accept it, and on terms of *secrecy*, in so many aspects at once, meaning us, too -- that I have advantages that simply are not fair to others, in part because I am nearly a non-person, as far as electronic records.  I told him exactly that.  I probably sounded like a child who has just discovered injustice.  He looked at me for so long, like he had to start over in his thoughts, several times.  He said it is about safety.  That was not the moment for polemics over his feelings. 

I asked him to stay and we settled in on my sofa, legs loosely intertwined & a bit of talk, and when I finally kissed him on the mouth he said he'd wanted to open my trousers & feel my pants, and I was already further on & wound up & I said, tell me if you want more, all of that was about fear over what we think is controllable, the future is a total unknown, just love me (nearly crying again -- me, alongside still introspection with tightly closed lips -- him).  He wanted more.

I love him so much.

(Late) I missed Mum and I needed to talk.  If you don't know my kitty you'd imagine that his carrying on viewing papers, while I am tucked under one arm and crying against his shirt, means he is not there with me.  But he is very much involved and when I told him what my brother thought of her, the sort of research he'd done which he then used to explain her, even to me, as though she might emerge among his discoveries, M admitted he'd read David's major papers out of curiosity about her -- I'd not been aware of that.  He told me he'd no intention of taking a position about her neurological makeup.  "Alexander," he said, "there is something paradoxical to be found in our dear mothers' respective temperaments."  "Oh, Lord, you could be right.  But kitty, to be honest, I knew her briefly."   

I'll finish this another time.

 

_28\. Sept._

After a night in the separate rooms and breakfast at his right hand, though this time seated directly next to him instead of at a corner, I noticed that he wasn't putting on anything more, but pacing between things in his bedroom, almost like S, but not as viscerally, while I stood at the door.  "How shall I dress?" I asked.  He sniffed, "Not quickly."  "That will take me...how long, kitty?"  "A few minutes more of your patience?"  "Yours, darling.  Everything all right?"  "Merely.  I'm.  Not in attendance, today."  "Where, dear?"  His answer, as he approached me rather suddenly, was a single, long kiss.  "Anywhere," he said, his then-wet lips quivering up into a thin smile.  "Are we all right?"  He looked away abstractedly.  "Forty minutes, Alexander.  Please."  "Why?  Why now?"  "Patientia læsa fit furor, as you recently stated in your sleep.  Only three recommendations for the Council of Europe and I go offline until two o'clock," he said.  "But what's wrong?" I asked.  He mumbled, "Apparently more than I'd realised."  "Oh dear, what?"  "I'm staying in.  For a lie-in with you, shall we say a brunch?"  "What?"  "Alexander."  He reached for me, held me against his chest and rubbed the lower half of my spine with the flat of his hand, not quite low enough until he gave me a teasing grope over the arse, again not enough, but certainly not a 'get thee to a wardrobe'.  He huffed, took a buzzing call on his phone, stated a code, ground his teeth.  Rang off.  "Distraction, dearest companion."  "You're --"  "Staying home.  Thirty-eight...."  He literally rubbed his prick over my hip &  I swear he was chuckling as he went downstairs.  Randy as hell.  OMG. What else had I said in my sleep? 

Time spent on readying one's nerves for love -- would that more hours were spent thus, in the companionship of the sweetest of Distractions.  Yes, desire, when the object loves you, truly, and wants to show it and be shown the same.

And he said I was beautiful and smiled when he saw me again, fresh from showering, and I took off his clothes, his prick nearly springing into my mouth when I bent down to touch it and pop my mouth over the head.  I got him on his back & I pulled off a towel I had requisitioned and climbed on him to kiss him and willed myself to stay open even when his eyes were close to my chest & all he could see was a rough-to-smooth space of scarring, but did it matter, when I am not only scars but the one who was able to make them, and as soon as I'd gone to shake off that thought he was wrapping a hand over my thigh & his prick was trailing hotly over my hole and he lost his breath into my mouth when I said I was ready inside.  I asked him to be gentle.  He said he would and slid right over my spot, he knows how it electrifies my knees, my entire spine, root.  The closeness of pulse to where I cannot tell which is whose anymore.  Then his sounds before coming, near panic in his breath and the way he holds onto me as if I weren't real, or at least not right then.  That he comes so much, it feels gorgeous.  He is then caught between wanting to give me a moment for myself and needing to hold on for a while longer & talk, ask if I'm all right.  His care and masculinity in those moments is astounding. 

So today we had our lie-in, in London.  Our first of the sort.  I am absolutely liquid-jointed at the moment after a lot of play and a back rub I was not expecting would nearly undo my nervous system for good.  I believe I am being spoiled as few are on earth.


	87. In sickness

_08\. Oct._

Book, it's not you, it's me.

I know, I know.  That's what all the boys say.

At times I find I am crying inside continually.  It had gone away.  I don't know what I would do without my ginger kitty.  Or rather, I do.  OMG.

It's raining constantly.

 

_12\. Oct._

Eighty-two people in London are now in critical condition due to avian flu, in hospital; attempts are made to isolate them but of course there are not enough means.  Already.  One man died yesterday -- my age, a patient with lymphoma.  Our first fatality on British soil, the seventh in the EU today.  As of this morning I have elected to stop counting.  I asked M not to tell me the numbers unless absolutely necessary.  Well, one 6 was very welcome -- we celebrated half a year since our day in the Glen Burns, with a thousand kisses, in the absence of other tokens, understandably.  It was pouring rain noisily outdoors  but his purrs and warm breath and endearments were all I heard near my ears and all I need in the world.

 

_17\. Oct._

Another gap, I know.  For the first time in all these months, I cannot find solace in writing.  In fact, seeing certain facts put on paper, in my own hand, seems only to add to my anxiety. 

My birthday is in ten days.  There is a chance kitty will be away, though.

I've spoken to S a number of times on Skype but it is usually about the most prosaic things -- they have a bit of honey, he is preparing the hives for slowed activity, J is writing a novel made of interconnected vignettes that are apparently quite racy and funny.  I can imagine -- he had this understated, knowing snark in his blog posts that would serve a crime narrative well.  I hope to read the entire thing, sometime. 

 

_18\. Oct._

While on the subject of our diplomatic class, I asked M when I'd ever see Randall.  He said R had gone to India again for a specialised course, and would remain abroad for the time being.  But that we would continue.  "That's the first time I've seen you smile so spontaneously in many days," M said, sitting back and studying me, "though you are remarkable, in any way."  How many men could say so.  I was struck by that and barely managed to say, "So are you."  He dared shake his head.  And I dared shake mine.  "No, kitty, you see, we neglect to say certain things aloud.  As though they would lose their meaning if repeated.  They don't."  He agreed.  I feel we've come light years and I hope he realises how much that means to me, to be at his side, now.

I need to go to church and put some things to rest.  Perhaps this coming Sunday.

 

_20\. Oct._

Ginger kitty, level-headed as ever, my dearest, my rock, and greatest love, was so tired he stammered twice while reading aloud last evening, much to his annoyance.  Now it is number-crunching, estimates, producing summaries of what others plan and do, or do not do.  Monitoring.  With me propped against him (last night with slight arrhythmia, again).

He is looking beyond the virus because he must.  He has withdrawn from certain areas of activity but I cannot say more on that.  I said I wouldn't count and I am certainly not protesting if he feels it necessary to drop some agencies or reporting from the primary loop because cooperation has proven fruitless.

Something else, then.  He said this morning, over breakfast, that he would like to take his taikomochi to Japan someday, would I like to see it?  Take a short art course for a week or two?  I almost choked on my tea.  "I've always wanted to go to Toyko, it always seemed out of reach.  I'd adore that.  Let's," I said, to which he smiled a bit in the direction of his plate.  "I thought so."  "It's the gunpowder green tea that's made you think of it?"  "No."  "No?  Or your singing, painted gei --"  "Hush."  "--sha."  He repressed a smile behind his teacup.  Soon he stood up from the table to bend over me and kiss me.  “Your INR, just now?”  I sighed -- ech.  “Three point two,” I answered.  "Good.  Pardon me, carry on with your reading, please."  And he left for about an hour, I'm not certain why aside from a series of calls.  Japan, OMG. 

Note:  the master engraver, author of four books and poet in the Hungarian, Sir Károly Simko-Vágner, has passed away.

 

_24\. Oct._

This morning was the first time I'd been at the club in ages but that was because Kitty is leaving for Oslo this afternoon, in about an hour from now.  They've changed the date.  He elected to take me along for several last minute matters, and to talk with me.  I might have been calmer, but I couldn't find my place.  Some good news, in that J's deceased friend from the Afghanistan War will be decorated posthumously for bravery.  M claimed it had been my idea, but I cannot recall anything of the sort.  He was gathering files and I was helping him sort them, a bit.  "But will you want me before you go?  We might?" I asked.  He shook his head and put his arms around me.  "And you shall not drive yourself to arrhythmia over a negligible period of absence."  I held him and kissed his neck where he has a few beautiful freckles all together, and finally he admitted that it isn’t negligible to him either.  "Communication, kitty?  Can't we change it?"  "No.  Type 2.  You’ll show me everything you’ve been drawing when I come home. Tell me if there's anything you want?"  I told him to come home quickly, for what I'll want.  We both need it.

Every time he travels.  The things they do with planes.   

My stomach hurts.  I'll need to finish this another time.  There's more.

My/not my F8&C opened last night (23rd).  I wasn't able to take part. I'd promised not to go out after a misunderstanding over mass, again -- it was frustrating until I saw how many people were there.  Mercy.  I should explain how it happened that I saw it:  Carly was wearing a GoPro camera with a live uplink device, and had created a feed with a streaming-type site so I could "attend" the party, from the perspective of his chest, which was odd but interesting.  All the street photographers were identifiable by the cameras -- they'd all worn them as a tribute to the fallen photo-j from Palestine.  (F8&C is lined with terrifying pictures "Fall: Iraq"  in which the body is visible, as are rescuers, the first mourners, an open sky, transport -- OMG). 

As an opening exhibit it has taken on a life of its own.  Privately I think of it as another "Character Assassination" -- an indictment of censors who wanted to block these photos.  (The popular press is in fits over it.)  I should say more but I don't have the energy.  Let me explain why.

Carly & I were texting on and off.  When he wandered into the gent's I texted "You would NOT!"  (He did shut it off, fret not.)  And when he switched it back on, he was standing in front of a full-length mirror by a door.  Still in the gent's.  He reached over and locked the door.  "Lexie," he said, through this full shot of himself, "I have to tell you something while we're here, I mean, without the noise.  Are you still there?"  I leapt at the computer and started a capture.  I texted that I was there.  He pulled out his phone, nodded in acknowledgement.  "So text me back like that if you want to.  This will be sort of a one-way thing, though.  I came here tonight, for this opening.  Because -- it was opening night, right.  And I wanted to be here, it's history in the making, and I needed to be here.  It was extremely important to do this, with the premiere, and the showing.  We're all in body cameras tonight on purpose.  To honour him.  Well, you know that already.  I'm sort of -- fucking freaking out.  Uh, look.  You are looking.  Shit.  Lexie, I wanted to fix things.  That weren't fixable.  Because of me.  You know that already, too, but I need to say this out loud.  I chose certain things and dug a hole for myself and hid in it, actually.  From the perspective of now, I see how fucked up that was, thinking I was doing something, to show you why it was important to leave, to prove something.  Even the way I'm doing this now is fucked up.  And I'm so sorry we can't just talk it out.  Well, we tried.  And, I'm in a fucking toilet.  Probably metaphorical, eh.  But.  You see, I can do something that matters, again, or I can stay on and do clothing shoots.  Which are going all right, but.  See, after the fire, and the shit afterward, I've been hiding my head in the sand, like I'll change things by showing the world my coward arse.  The point is, I'm leaving in a few days for Santiago, I don't have the date.  It's a military transport, so, could be very soon, I'll find out 12 hours ahead.  Noisy but free, and I can take a lot of equipment over.  I've been talking to -- him.  A few times.  There's an assignment there for me, it's time sensitive, some of the people involved are in failing health and it's important I go and shoot and get their stories out in time, people need to know.  So."  His lips started trembling and I lost it.  "Lexie, I don't know if you're hearing this."  He paused and wiped his eyes while I tried to text something and got out "Yes" to him.  "All right.  You're hearing me, right.  I'm sorry again for the way I walked back into your life, expecting a place where I never belonged to begin with.  You're very special, too special for that, and.  God, Lexie.  Those months back then still matter.  You matter.  In this world, you know.  And if I ever gave you anything, and I really hope I did.  Just remember the good sides, I meant it all, and not the fucked up ending I wrote in there, even if those parts are easier to believe.  So.  I plan to be back in London in six months or so.  Maybe a bit more.  And I hold out my hopes that we'll keep working on this place, okay?  There's a lot of good to do.  I'm so fucking proud to be here, and that you had this idea, it was a spark for a lot of people already, you see that tonight.  Something's happening on the scene.  I mean, look -- a lot of them are neck to neck but they all came to this, to show their support, that's what you are, you have these ideas that people can't ignore.  I'm leaving a list of more ideas and names of who to show the next several times, so, you can have a look what might be a good choice.  So, Lexie.  I'm going back out there.  Take care."  I texted him, "Take good care, dear, thank you for what you've done and also what you will do.  You'll do brilliantly.  Stay in touch."  I wanted to call.  Even that hurt so much, I don't know why I'm raw tonight.  Or I do know.

I miss my kitty.  We cannot talk for security reasons, a secret location which does not allow for any electronic means, of course. 

My fingers are stiff and my teeth ache, perhaps from earlier.  I must get a hold over myself.

It is awfully cold in this flat, I should see to the windows.

 

My dearest, my love,

I couldn't sleep because of the trouble I had which I will not detail now.  All these months of poor sleep on my account, my snoring and carrying on in the night, and I imagined you in Oslo in a soft bed where you have no Alexander to pull you into his insensible embraces to pet you while calling you dearest Mum or Lord even knows what else.

But I am here for another purpose, to piece together what I thought of when I was unable to stand and walk to this place earlier, take up a pen.  Nightmares made me desperate to order my words afterward, to prove I was back.  To better dream that you were back. 

I fancied things like these as follow, that you cannot answer for reasons of security. 

My tongue does not form words the same way in your absence, perhaps despondent that it will go unanswered by your kisses.  I miss your voice.  I spoke but there was no signal therefore I cannot say how much I said to you and how much to this empty room which I admit has grown close and warm, not for comfort's side to be sure as I would prefer an open window to this but for now it remains so. 

I'm waiting to see what improvements come with the morning.

How you can bear the pressures of secrecy and such knowledge I cannot understand.

I am not entirely well tonight and would gladly have heard your voice in my ear, even in the form of recorded words you'd said when giving a message as I might have. 

 

Dearest,

When I wake up tomorrow I shall see how it is with me &c.  

Perhaps I will call them but I cannot remember the sequence I was supposed to tell him, wasn't there one.

Yours &c

 

101.3

 

Kitty, imagine what you love in me most and the skin which holds me all in now. 

I look forward to your first kisses followed by others who doubly impatient from waiting behind will be warm.  The sound in how you talk just before kisses, your voice is lower then.  I love your thoughts. 

That you ever reached out to me of all people on Earth. 

 

I don't remember how I slept without confidence I should wake.

Sometimes I didn't want to.  Yet this morning I was relieved when I saw my room.  It wants only for you, now.

Currently waiting to hear your voice again.  I don't know the sequence, my dearest one. 

 

The vomiting is exhausting but less  frequent.  I should not write these things.

Verba volant, scripta manent.   I love you so dearly may you know.

 

Kitty the fever is persisting at 101.7, worse w/ me.  Therefore read when necessary, dearest.  I will leave this out for you. 

 

Find it and read it, that is, you will have & I don't know what will come first, that you will find it, though I promise I shall not give in to this, which insists like the pressure in the room which by changing has approached

 

101.9/102.3

Dearest ginger kitty,

It's worse.  My chest hurts, an unpleasant pressure in region of sternum.  My joints hurt & my teeth.

Poorly really & I'll call when done & leave this for you .

It's on the table.

 

Kitty,

You have held me together literally with your own hands. 

Your love is skin.  Understand!   Consider, my kitty, think of it as you:  skin.

A man's best most vital parts held together in the world for life by your care and your love

and I'll love you easily until that deep pivot point

which snaps in us!!!

It must snap

Dear man, my true love.  My sun and stars, I would fly to you. 

Arms as if I'd flown hours & no distance won. 

How I long for the garden.

 

My affairs:  with A. Mahlersohn

& re. others

 

Your sundial in full sun declares the truth of the shadow until the outline which is the first glimpse of death startles each of us.  As though we had been given forever to live.  I mean by this we've not been given that on earth BUT we are given choice, to be a MIRROR of Him who chose to save us, through his death, which is what I meant.

On earth I would fill all time so gladly at your side. 

How I adore you.  Light is extraordinary, so much like love!!! 

 

INR 6 error?

102.9

 

Mycroft, darling:

Walk toward the Light.

Praise Him!  He is the Light of this world, our greatest Hope. 

Shepherd, redeemer.

And we shall have it, my dearest love!  Eternal life!

Greet them 


	88. Non intendentes commoveri

_30\. Nov._

Lovely to have you.  A pleasure to be able to sit in a quiet place where there are no mechanical sounds aside from my own, still-peculiar rhythm.  There is much to explain.

I am not writing a lot at once but I don't suppose anyone else will know I'm taking breaks?  

Sid was with me.  See, I've given no context.  When has Sid been near?  When I could not stand, walk, wash, &c alone.  My dearest kitty brought me my former nurse all the way from a military base near York, while I got back on my feet again.  It took longer than expected.  Expected by me.  Others, among them Sid and M, claim I am mending brilliantly.  I'm not certain what nearly pissing one's self while coughing and having lilac and yellow patches on my arms surrounding larger veins add to one's personal charms, but they are pleased with it all.  Pleased to oblige, I suppose.  Ech.  I'm greyer, I'd swear.

Much of what I know and will write here comes from Sid, as I hardly saw M.  Which is not to say he did not see me. 

He came some days just to watch and check personally, though he did not come inside.  Even he was not exempt from procedures.  He'd been given access to me only once but I was insensible and he'd -- shall we not.  We shall not.

Anyhow, he would stand on the other side of a small pane of glass between my room and the service corridor and watch me eat, or later when I'd walk around the room with Sid.  But his cards were frequent, nearly daily.  I've got a stack of them.  And they were an encouragement I cannot imagine going without.  They are so pretty, even if they cannot quite surpass my favourite -- "Essential", because that one has seen a bit more.  Some are with birds made of swirled calligraphy because he knows I love those.  And I know the references well.  One was C. Rossetti -- I'd not have imagined he'd quote her.  He must have remembered that I adored all things pre-Raphaelite when I was younger (of course he remembered): 

 _"I dream of you to wake:  would that I might // Dream of you and not wake but slumber on;  // Nor find with dreams the dear companion gone,  // As summer ended summer birds take flight.  // In happy dreams I hold you full in sight, // I blush again who waking look so wan;  // Brighter than sunniest day that ever shone,  // In happy dreams your smile makes day of night.  // Thus only in a dream we are at one,  // Thus only in a dream we give and take  // The faith that maketh rich who take or give;  // If thus to sleep is sweeter than to wake,  // To die were surely sweeter than to live, // Though there be nothing new beneath the sun."_   How the meaning of a good work can be transformed by years and experiences, and loves.  A true love, rather.

By now many in Europe look at birds with trepidation but we don’t, and his flourishes are so emotional, doves in flight surrounded by whipped lines.  I traced some & he had pressed the pen very hard into the cardstock and never lifted it.  So precise.  The more I recovered and could read/re-read them, the more it tormented me how he had not been touched or cared for by anyone all that time.  Some days I couldn't control my feelings at all, even for the benefit of the military personnel around me.  I must have been an irritating case for the officers, indeed.  Sid assured me they got all sorts. 

 

_Words I only tolerate as uttered in your voice numbered in the tens of thousands, today.  Examples forthcoming._

 

_"Why delay enjoyment, of all things?"  - Alexander Nussbaum, Ward 6 deserter. Function ascribed to target in spoken declaration 30 April of this year, intent misconstrued._

_Do NOT walk in corridors unassisted, please._

_  
_

_Unbearable terms in the mouths of Lords, within three and a half minutes:  open, warm, explain, foremost, great, dear, hard, silent, closer._

  

_How did it ever happen, you have asked.  You embodied honesty, justice, loyalty and tolerance.  Sympathy followed close behind._

 

_Needed_

 

_Alexander, the absence of your laughter in the garden and in the quarters upstairs is appalling._

_The risk of relapse obliges numerous precautions and delays I should never agree to, were circumstances any less complicated._

_Patience._   _(You should also be patient.)_

_Delicious, nice, careful, blue, gentle, bright, brunch, talent, fascinating.  Wonderful.  Darling.  Lovely.  Perfect.  Kitty._

 

_I'd fancied I would not miss you terribly while in the cloakroom closest to the Lords Chamber this afternoon.  I was in error.  Unsurprisingly, the maroon poncho is still there, every bit as hideous as in August though dustier; no takers among the sober.  Do not lose courage, little one.  MH_

_Addendum:  do not lose courage, Alexander._

  

_You needn't have worried; you were most presentable, holding a cup on your own.  I've not seen a prettier one than you, unshaven._

 

_Memories of love and the love of memories were entangled, for the first time I could remember._

 

_Though heartened by reports of your determination to return to London, I urge you* not to leave your room in that manner again, Alexander._

_*I, hypocrite, advise one whose longings are nearly identical to my own._

_*my dearest one_

 

I literally fell asleep earlier on. I wanted to write in some of the cards for you, volume, may they be alongside all his beautiful words and love, from before.

He was so thin when I saw him. Is.  I should say I meant the very first day I saw him (or recall seeing him).  More than handsome, gorgeous and calm, even though the furrow between his brows was deeper than ever, and his mouth thin and tight.  Dressed in his dark, pinstriped suit from S's and J's wedding, and his coppery-russet tie, nearly the colour of a fiery close-trimmed beard and moustache.  I couldn't believe my eyes and as my silly head wrapped the last of its neurons around the idea that he was there to see me, that he needed me, and Lord knows what on Earth had actually brought me to that bed -- I found my throat so tight and raw I couldn't talk, so I tried to raise a hand and realised I could not.  I was absolutely trapped in my own body, awake but unable to to do anything besides look and move my head forward.  I started to panic that he would leave and my heart -- didn't race.  It was perfectly even.  I could turn my eyes and see it on the monitor.  Shocking.  You see, book, after being keenly aware for at least thirty-five years that its sound is atypical, and hearing it monitored countless times, it was different.  And when I looked again, kitty was indeed gone.  A second nurse appeared because Sid was sleeping & I had an attack of coughing that was so painful it nearly ended in vomiting, which I hope M did not see.  I didn't make the connection fully and rationally until later, that something else beyond pharma was keeping my pulse so even.  I learned I'd had a pacemaker put in nearly ten days before and cried for long enough that I required sedation.  As it was relayed to me by Sid.  Bloody embarrassing.  He also told me that while that memory of the beard was my first response to my kitty visiting, he'd been by before that, as well, that he'd come in all the way from Brussels some days before -- they'd informed him I'd opened my eyes several times and responded to a simple question by blinking, and he'd abandoned a conference, leading to a sort of desertion by top participants, at a WHO-organised event, no less.  That he would do such a thing. 

There are vaccines, now, and antivirals, which seem to work for many patients.  That is wonderful news to counter the deaths and permanent disabilities across Europe. I've not heard all the numbers as kitty won't tell me, he says for my own good. Arguing points has no place, it's tiring.  I received an antiviral but I know little about it except that I may have these "issues" with my kidneys for some time and an increased risk of a certain sort of bacterial infection.  Well, I'll take issues over death at 41, thank you.  (I cleverly avoided celebrating my birthday, ha.)

OMG I missed kitty's 51st as well!!!  Hell!  I've not said a thing!  What else have I managed to overlook!  Arrrgh!!!

The first time we were together again was two nights ago, or should I say two afternoons ago (?)   When a driver (not Rodney but military) had brought me back to London, directly to M's place, where everything had been set out for me, including the silk gown, and Gladys (?) had even lit a fire.  I waited for M about an hour and read a newspaper at the hearth -- it was nightmarishly slow going but halfway through I noted it was Die Welt, from Berlin.  I started to laugh rather loudly at myself for not noticing I'd been reading in German.  And that was when M came in -- I'd not heard his footsteps nor the door key over the roar of the fire.  

I must say I had never seen him that way, soft around the eyes, so pleased.  I started to laugh and cry like a complete lunatic, though I’d sworn I would not.  But we were finally alone, it’d been so long, in fact I was in hospital 32 days and we count time by our own impatient measures. 

He, dressed faultlessly from work, as always, held me -- the wreck that I am, in cobalt silk heavily (very heavily -- I'd forgotten) embroidered with a garden (because I've received two gardens from kitty).  He'd left it draped over his sofa.  I see I already mentioned it but this is in pen and I cannot erase.  So. 

(Book, redundancy may be seen as emphasis or reinforcement.  Bear with me!  It can only get better!)

M came home, as I wrote, earlier.  I couldn't keep my fingers off his cheeks and chin.  The beard gives a vivid dash of colour to him.  Not a speck of grey.  It softens the angles in his face which have appeared, of late.  He has lost so much weight that his trousers slip and need altering, yet again (he might try mine -- put my kitty in jeans & my knees would be done for).  I digress.  Willingly.  You would, too, have you even seen of what I speak?

There is a restlessness in my kitty that was not there before, though not from the urgency of work, as I initially thought.  His emotions are closer to the surface than before, it's difficult to explain.  At first I feared he'd lost his job -- or worse, that his connection to me had brought him new difficulties -- fortunately, it is not that.  He doesn't read in front of me right now.  In fact, he hasn't mentioned anything about his reading, so far. 

I thought I knew my man's smiles, but this was something else.  And it was strange, to feel we’d already said so much, yet he’d not uttered more than a greeting before he crossed the room to put his arms around me. I'd not even pulled myself up fully.  He guided me back down to the sofa, kept an arm around me and turned my head up to kiss me, mess and all.  "My little dove," he whispered, "This morning's, from Berlin.  Well done, very well done."  "Thank you."  "Your laughter -- matchless."  "Thank you.  So.  I've got so many questions, and."  Just then I couldn't remember any and I froze for a moment.  "What is it?"  (I stared at him.)  "Start with how you're feeling," he prompted, "if you're comfortable.  Residual pains?"  "Yes, but I'm perfectly all right."  Suddenly we started talking over each other.  "Because I'm so glad to see you, ginger kitty, it's wonderful, and."  "Your voice is stronger.  It's a comfort to hear it, here."  "Really?  And I wanted this, just like this.  And you're just lovely this way."  "'Keep'.  Are you certain, now?"  (Referring to a sign I made for him, with Sid, to keep the beard!)  "More than ever.  But I never said, I'm so sorry, I didn't manage."  "Yes, you did say it, thank you.  Calmly."  "I mean I didn’t say goodbye, I wrote it and left it for you.  Did you find it?  You did?"  M looked away, into the fire.  "Yes, many weeks ago."  "Kitty.  I've lost track of things, if I say anything ridiculous, I'm tired, forgive me, I don't remember everything."  "No tears."  "Kitty."  "Slowly."  "I don't know what happened just before, I couldn't piece it together without my book."  "You rang twice, the second time was the morning you were evacuated from London, they weren't forwarded.  Nearly costing the privilege of hearing anything further from you."  When he said that, I saw a spark of rage in his eyes that had nothing to do with what was adjacent, dancing in the hearth.  Telling, and chilling.  "It wasn't forwarded, that's exactly what Sid said."  "It was assumed they'd reached me in error," he said.  "That you had no such person.  How could they know, though, they wouldn't know better, kitty.  Well, Sid explained some things, as they came up, about -- what's been missed in -- recent events and --?"  He kissed the crown of my head.  "And in such a state, standing by, writing of hope."  "Do you have my books?  I can't find them."  "I secured both of your journals just after I'd returned.  And brought them here.  You're nearly out of pages again."  (Very true -- though I needn't point that out to you, patient volume.)  

M went quiet for several minutes and my mind drifted as he ran a hand over my back to calm me, and himself.  All those days in hospital, the therapy, the shuffle-walks, the pans, the drips, the needles.  So much blood work.  The pacemaker.  The bizarre remote control used during adjustments, the military psychologist and his cautious baseline questions & attempts to reason with me over changes, the nurses who all had different pet names for me (dearie, sweetie, adda-laddie).  And dreaming of him, being there, in a setting like that one, at the fire.  His lips on my cheek.  But there was such a deep silence that I finally asked what he was thinking about.  He said, "There is good news.  Calmly, please.  Sherlock is in hospital, but he will recover fully."  "Oh my God, no."  "Recover *fully*, Alexander."  "Oh, thank the Lord.  John?"   "Working as much as three men, in Brighton at the moment, near my brother.  Medical personnel, naturally, we inoculated among the first, his boosters and years abroad were to his advantage.  Well, he is a resistant --"  "Carly?"  "You'll recall that Mr. Parsons is on assignment in Chile."  "Chile!  Kitty!"  "He did tell you, look back in your journal shortly before your illness, you'd certainly have written of it.  There is a documentary to be made, a group of former political prisoners will regain their voices.  The album of their stories and the resulting shake-up will point to training by the same senior agent who was responsible for advising the 1N-N1 operation in Syria, in June.  The media juncture will serve to promote Parsons' career.  He agreed."  "Gracious Mother!"  "To his credit, he made numerous efforts to discover your location before his departure.  Well.  You might write that you're home, he is concerned about you."  "I will." 

I leaned into his hand -- he'd started petting my head, a bit too cautiously.  I said, “You are still so angry at yourself, aren't you.  You think you might have prevented more, for me, for a number of others.  Have there been street conflicts?"  "Suppressed, for the most part.  There are rumours but it can go no further.  Alexander...."  "Yes, kitty."  "The hour is unimportant --"  "When?"  (I was not expecting things to take the turn they did -- really.)  "I meant that time feels far less accusatory when you are here.  Ignore that, it was a failed paraphrase from a Hindi dialect.  Ah, greetings from Randall."  "Thank you.  I’m sure it was very fine, kitty."  He looked at me carefully.  "No."  "Well, I wouldn't know."  "Not the point.  We might start from the notion that 'lateness and disappointment travel in pairs'.  As my father put it.  I'd fancied I understood that."  "What do you mean?"  "Alexander.  When I learned what had happened, the disappointment stemmed from the lateness of the hour.  The figurative hour."  "Oh."  "Apologies, I am braying."  "You've not brayed even once in -- I don't know how.  I'm sorry, I don't know how long, very long, kitty." 

That made him smile, or perhaps it was the randomness in everything we were saying.  He started, "Now, please listen.  When you were lost to us all, to each and every one of your doctors, I was told to make my peace."  "I'm so sorry."  "And to expect a detailed report of the exact cause of your death within two days," he said.  "They shouldn't have placed you in that position."  "Justified, given your state."  "Darling, I'm terribly sorry."  "Let me explain the second bottom to what I have just implied, that they should report to me.  I was in a position, having been informed I might look into arranging your burial."  "Oh, hell."  "I'd have preferred anything else under the sun, including one last gamble for your life, on conditions you would not have accepted."  "Meaning?  What sort?"  "Your treatment cannot be disclosed.  However, I calculatingly overstepped your will in the process."  "The third clause."  "Yes." "Concerning the right to die -- ?" I blurted.  M raised his brow and replied, "As stated by a broken man who when preparing his will following a health scare nine years ago, was convinced he would never marry -- as there was no such possibility, for one.  And who could not bring himself to commit suicide but would go softly, in the way of his mother. Or mine."  "That's a terrible thing to say."  M answered, more firmly, "You didn't change it last winter, when you had a chance.  Fortunately.  It was precisely that clause which allowed a margin. And I exploited it fully, with no misgivings whatsoever." 

Going by his manner, that did not seem entirely the case.  Well.  Neither of us were ourselves.  I was shaking from the nerves.  M pulled me close and rubbed my back and continued, "You're trembling, stay close."  "Tell me what you did," I said.  "Alexander, you must have inferred already that the clause was overridden, you have a pacemaker."  "I know, it's very different."  "Should you look to your left, you will see your medical file on the table."  "I know, but I didn't feel a need to read it, right now."  "Understandably.  Therein are forms on which I am named your legal next of kin."  "What?"  "Or your spouse."  "Spouse?"  "They've not been replaced by records in the NHS system, yet."  "That's -- oh, oh, dear...."  "Calmly, please." "Oh, I got things wrong, indeed."

He didn't know the real reason I was getting dizzier by the minute -- a psychologist or nurse (?) in hospital had tested my memory several times, asking me personal trivia, as they do.  Among other things, he'd asked for my spouse's first name.  But I'd denied having a spouse & he'd looked down at his clipboard & asked for next of kin, to which I'd stated, with a smile, that I had no legal next of kin, next question please.  I felt horrible right then, and I was about to confess it all when M said, "Don't agitate yourself."  "Gracious Mother, we're married? I might have made a serious mistake."  "Have you."  "Oh, dear, I'm sorry I can't recall."  His neck and cheeks reddened.  "No.  It was a hastily-prepared forgery, more precisely a minor alteration to the registry in Westminster."  "Alteration?"  "The names of the grooms and the witnesses at a certain marriage on the twelfth of April of this year were reversed."  "You falsified a marriage record!"  "Essentially."  "You fallaciously married us to override a clause in my will!"  "It will be righted."  "Righted!"  "Of course, now that your cognitive functions have been declared satisfactory and you can act on your own behalf.  The sooner the better, as they are public figures with a record of interest."  "You'd not uphold that status?"  "Of course not."  I said (and I do regret it), "You might have spared yourself the nuisance of that contrivance of yours!  Why did you bother to tell me!"  He closed his eyes and shook his head.  "The nature of your indictment is no longer clear," he said quietly.  He would not look at me.  

My hands are shaking just thinking about this.  I had hurt him and he'd been mortified to admit to that "switch", for my sake.  He does not have as much of that hard shell right now and my opinion mattered.  

I lost it when that reached me.  A lot, really.  He was wise enough to understand that by then it wasn't over a public record.  It was about understanding how a clause made when my heart was wrecked over another man had led to such a desperate situation so many years later.  It struck me that we should be celebrating that we are together, alive.  I couldn't apologise enough and yet he wouldn't hear of it. I kissed him everywhere I could.

_01\. Dec._

Advent!

Yesterday I couldn't finish even though it was most important.  Continuing....

Later on we were able to talk.  Mercy.

To pick up:  I said, dumbly, "Methods aside, you elected not to allow natural death." (We won't go into that.  OMG.)  "That was when they installed -- inserted this?" I asked.  (Referring to the pacemaker.)  "No, that was later when it was clear you would live.  The procedure was not very invasive.  It is one of the smallest available, and you certainly feel the difference when you have a surge of adrenaline."  "Absolutely.  The sound takes some getting used to."  "True.  There is an uncompleted matter, which I have been prefacing all along."  That was enough to silence me, if his expression hadn't been so unlike his own.  I can only describe it as tired -- but he is not one to go down so easily.  Weakened, perhaps?  Emotional, certainly.  He pulled out his pocketwatch.  And I saw that his ring was hanging on the chain behind it, when I’d not even noticed it was missing from his finger.  (I was about to learn that it had been, for some time.)  "What's happened?" I asked him.  "I’d not planned to remove it, it was my father's," M stated, pre-empting what I'd opened my mouth to ask next.  His eyes were black pools, his lips even thinner than before.  I wasn’t sure what he was going to do, he never speaks of the man.   But he unclipped the ring from the large clasp and explained, "This was discarded by my father shortly after my mother's death.  Theirs was a poor match that ended in discord and illness, with a long history of resentments and disappointments not worth recalling now.  Even so, his gesture was coarse and I was determined to keep it away from my brother's understanding.  He was at a delicate point, emotionally.  Initially I wore it as a student, to ward off questions.  Later, I fancied it a reminder of the hollowness of my experiences.  It was also a symbol of an unresolved rift between my father and myself, over the manner in which he'd thrown off memory.  The refusal to mourn notwithstanding.  Insulting to those who could not refuse.  It was a powerful symbol to me, personally."  "I used to think you were a widower," I told him.  He looked down at the ring once more and released a breath, heavily.  "Ah.  I shouldn't like to become one."  "No, kitty."  He gave this thought a nod, and a thick swallow signalled he'd not go on with it.  He looked over at me, his eyes very grey with ragged irises pushed aside by the growing blackness in their centres.  "So, little dove.  The truth.  Just before the matter with the registry I'd decided to bury this rather burdensome aide memoire with you.  I fancied you'd have understood why."  "You did?"  "Yes."  "Thank you for that."  "Alexander, that decision stands."  "But -- I don't understand why."  "Your right hand.  Please."  "What does this mean to you?"  "Forgetfulness," he said. 

I'd hoped and planned far more, and there were things I'd waited to say all those long weeks and I'd resolved I'd go about it with more decorum, and upon receiving something so significant, I might have done better by him.  But we demand control where not an iota is to be found.  So when suddenly he was beyond speaking, I put my arms around him and cried like an animal where he could not. 

Ironically enough, I forgot to present my right hand until much later, and we were able to laugh a bit over it.  Those laughs turned to kisses, which felt very much like our first.  New.  But those kisses quickened into more, and we went upstairs together, very slowly, his arm around my back, and mine around his waist.  We were talking rather nervously the entire climb.  It has been some time & he needed contact but was worried sick about tiring me & when I curled up against his chest (kissing him again in his bed was beyond hot, like the first night all over) we could hardly get our clothes off, it was so funny.  He couldn’t stop himself laughing, either, particularly that he’d lost the ring somewhere in a hopeless tangle of clothes and sheets and he couldn’t believe his own carelessness, which was absolutely side-splitting, that the ring would fight off my hand, &c. 

And somehow we started all over, slower.  Oh Lord, the need.  It was very intense after everything, after what he'd done, and said.  And what was roaring through my brain.  Newness, comfort, joy, shock.  Rather abrupt need for a shag that felt very human and in so being, proved an enormous relief.

 

_10\. Dec._

There's been more talking-things-out.  In the intervening time, an entry in our proud nation's registry still states we were joined in matrimony one fine morning in April in the presence of Dr. John Watson and Mr. Sherlock Holmes.  M claims he has no tolerance for the particulars. 

There is more.  I wish I could concentrate better. 

Even the birds he was sending me, all along.  Little dove cards -- so nice & he couldn't bring himself to say it, and now he does, like he did earlier on:  "My little dove, why aren't you eating?"  (Little.  Well, rather thin, true, we both are.)

Imagine that the exhibit with MY DRAWINGS at the TATE starts in two weeks.  Gracious PETER & PAUL.

There is a line of people forming who would like portraits.  By me. 

I'd planned so much sex, mercy.  Imagine, a twelve and his birthday, I had ideas.  Another time.  I still cannot believe it.  I will get back to form, I shall.

 

_11\. Dec._

Ah, this is outrageous, this being madly wanted.  One is nearly persuaded he has reasons to get off of his arse and live.


	89. In health

_13\. Dec._

In front of me now are two things that move me greatly and I have to say something about them, first. One is my hand, in its present state, which would have returned to dust by now, without my kitty; I love him so much.  It is literally forcing something to even out my heart for me. 

It is odd to have this device.  I do sleep well, there is that.  Sometimes I still forget words mid-sentence but it could also be -- what.  Megrims, let's say.  

Perhaps it is just as well I am rapidly running out of pages, herein.  Ech.  There was going to be a second thing, and it is the stack of cards from M, just in front of me. For instance, "Mr. Mycroft Holmes requests the pleasure of the company of Mr. Alexander Nussbaum".  On occasion, when we have argued, he has reverted to that sort of invitation, and it is always clear how little he wants to take for granted, as though I would ever refuse him.  

After a few days of silence on the subject, kitty gave me his ring (he'd finally found it stuck behind a leg of his bed frame, and had set it aside for a quieter moment).  He put it on my right hand for me yesterday when I explained that I felt awkward placing it there, myself.  It was just as we had finished our tea, in the middle of a dark, wild wind storm outside, which made the lights in the room flicker.  The atmosphere amused him to no end.  He went to start a fire for me, still chuckling to himself.  And he told me, as we gazed down at the flames side by side, that it has less to do with the registry but that he'd understood in my "absence" or what threatened to become my absence, how much my thoughts and regard have mattered to him from the start, that my love had come very unexpectedly on top of the privilege of my friendship.  It had been a comfort, he explained, in a life brimming with trivia that had approximated meaningful existence for decades and had gradually proven hollow.  How he'd wanted to talk and couldn't convince himself that it should ever happen until it finally did, when he found he felt true concern and curiosity and realised his interest had gone much further than intended.  I wish I could write it verbatim -- it was the most precise, beautiful summary, perfectly expressive of him and the surprise he'd experienced, understanding later on that I love him and will.  I told him I'd hardly ever stopped thinking of him since the first time I'd spoken to him, that the moment he'd asked my leave to admire me it had been sealed in my head that I would care for him and love him in return for all I had.  I didn't go on much further before I'd lost it in his arms & we might say that it was perfectly expressive of me though I was not pleased by my self-summary, by then.  He said I might just rest my head on his knee and he petted me until I could quiet down.  To close my eyes.  ("Little one.")  Which got to me even more, he was so gentle.

Well, Christmas is nearly here though so far I've fumbled shamefully through Advent.  I've got so much to be grateful for and I am behind in everything to Him.  So again I've managed enough that I cannot see a thing.  I am not worthy of any of His mercies and here I am, still.  Alive.  Gracious Mother, I am so sorry.

_16\. Dec._

M showed me a draft of a revised budget for a five year period explaining that section 17 would be of interest to me, on funding for the arts.  My next task in negotiations, he explained, will take place in spring in China and Randall will be helping me prepare -- that regardless of the posturing and declarations, nations will always seek intelligent dialogue through the arts, that he still sees a place for me in that sort of work as a cultural envoy -- in the early spring, if I put my mind to recovering quickly.  Of course I should like to.  He was so pleased, it's difficult to describe but I feel it from him.  He is brimming with relief that he is not alone -- that is something he was not able to show so clearly before.  And he wants to keep me close, even chooses to hold my hand at times in the house, which he never did before, or will ask me to hold his arm when we are sitting together, it's lovely.  I wish I were a bit more in control of my emotions because I, in return, am probably a bit too demonstrative but I cannot help myself.  He is aware that I am struggling a bit with the idea of this pacemaker and the other circumstances of my will.  That said, I see strain left over from (nearly mourning me) during those difficult days.  It must have been very hard on him as he does not have an outlet for all of his feelings and I am quite certain he had taken to drinking in the evenings again.  Fortunately, that has stopped. 

Ah, I finally found my rose balm today.  I was sure I'd lost it.  He'd had it in his drawer, bad one.  He'd missed me terribly.  He still will not say what happened to my blue and salmon scarf, however!  

I spoke to S last night on Skype for the first time since he got home on the 12th.  He was listening more than talking, but seems to be doing well.  He is very thin, poor dear.  He claims I look rather wan, myself -- if he had any idea what an improved version he was seeing, mercy.  He misses his birds and talks of getting a dog for J (a surprise, no doubt it will be a welcome one).

J still has loads of work but stays close by as much as he can.  S interrogated me about a photograph I sent along where he could see something he wasn't expecting, not referring to Auntie Claudia's hat pin.  J finally told him to shut up and I saw the soldier's hand enter the frame and squeeze S's shoulder in a not-so-reassuring manner.  

So the story behind the photo deserves a word, in the absence of a conclusion on the previous matter. 

From the start:  I'd not been out in the city in well over two months, and it was rather controlled as excursions go.  M was taking no chances and was watching me carefully all morning.  We spent at least an extra hour in bed, then dressed each other and kissed until it got a bit wild and I blurted out that I needed something right THEN (the beard is ticklish as hell, to us both, but I wouldn't have him shave it for anything).  I was not sorry.  OMG.

Anyhow.  He accompanied me to the wing at the Tate where printed partitions and glass panels are being mounted in place and covered with hangers and security wiring for all the artwork, to come.  I was greeted warmly by the curator, Y.S., as one of the three living artists featured.  I had to leave and calm down in a toilet just afterward.  I wasn't feeling well.  M followed and informed me gently that I must come out because Dr. Jens Lindberg wanted a word -- as it happened, he'd written a lovely article and some press material on the exhibitors' works in historical contexts.  Dear Jens -- he's lost that mad dancing designer, Horatio, but not "to the birds" as people are saying right now about the flu, unless one counts a fickle heart among blights.  Jens was pleasant and after we'd chatted he took several photographs in the room, one of which was fully candid, or M would not have allowed it (the one I sent to S, and the only one I have of us in one frame in a public place, which was technically not public but restricted).  We are standing relatively close together with a list of works and their descriptions.  I look like I'm singing & becoming exhausted by it, and M is wearing my reading glasses, and has his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow.  We'd just noted a small misprint:  my initials were transposed, making me A. A. G., &c.  The error was on the list of placards, only, though.  Minor, easily...righted.  (Hell, it's on the brain.  Book, we make for a lovely error in our nation's registry, I can say that to you, at least.) The ring is clearly visible on my finger, there, and S picked it out and texted me straight away, to take care of his brother's heart or he'd sketch my internal organs.  

He won't have at my organs, assuredly!  But the topic of the best man in "brother dear's" father's wedding ring has been placed in a holding pattern, shall we say.  Knowing the associative nature of S's inquisitive impulses he will go and look up his marriage record for the sake of reassuring himself of his good choices in life...oh, hell.  I'd not thought of...hell.  Hell!  

The rub:  I don't know when I'll see the end of my own 'marriage'.  Soon, I suppose.  I asked M if I should consider myself 'engaged' to which he'd said, "Call it what you will."  "We might unify our terminology, before your brother asks more directly?"  That got a rise out of him for several seconds.  He sighed, "Verschleppung," and then glanced over at me for my reaction.  I ventured a look his way and found him fighting back a smile.  "What?  'Indefinite postponement'!" I put my hand over my eyes. "But of what?"  There was another silence before he leaned over and whispered, "I might forget."  And then he kissed my earlobe.  I took my chance to stroke the side of his jaw and pet him.  I decided to leave it, there.  Besides, he was delicious.

Ech.  My kitty, the man who forgets nothing, indeed.  (Because he cannot forget!  Anything!  Can you imagine!)

OMG, I am a slow one!  What he said that night, about the meaning of this ring, on my finger.  To wear it for him.  That it means "forgetfulness"!  Unpack the layers in that, dear volume!  Ha!

So what have we got:  I've no idea whether the duration (even thus far) of this "error" should be considered an error.  I can't say if he is forgetting.  Or pretending to forget, and so on.  Should I remind him from time to time?  Noooo.  Mercy!

An unintentional nap three hours long.  A new habit of mine.  I'm all about "unintentional" and siestas, recently.  Perhaps I will draw a self-portrait and title it "Forgetfulness", because it applies!    

Just a moment ago I heard the front door and kitty will be up here in a few moments.  The rest of the afternoon will be ours -- only two meetings today, fortunately, the second concerning new policies in Disaster Coordination in NATO.  I meant Disaster Response Coordination!  What a pen-slip, he would laugh. 

When he sees me this way he knows he can kiss it away and he will, he always does.  He’ll know that I was lonely, remembering his last kisses at breakfast, that things feel new again, and while I am excited, I still have to re-learn what “for the rest of my life” and "forgetfulness" will mean.  For now, I’ll write it until he opens this door, here: 

Dearest ginger kitty, I love you, too. 

I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I will lov


	90. A last word for Book

Gracious Mother.  If writing about love must find interruption, then only by my ginger kitty. 

 

Dearly beloved, patient volume:

I have missed you.  These have become fascinating if not daunting times; I count every day a gift -- a new chance to love and feel loved.  I'll take them all as they come, as many as the Lord allots each of us.  Time has been lost before to delusions and errors, vanity and idle reflections about the self.  Life, every moment, is its own happiness, a chance to be reborn into a better man.  You see, dear one, we have to tell them we love them, be meek and treat them gently.  While we may be fearful of opening our hearts to others (even one other, for longer) we have no way of knowing whether a tomorrow will arrive to justify that wait.  It may not arrive.  We must say what we feel.  

Your endurance remains matchless, book.  You've proven well-sewn together.  So have I.  Forgive the scores of lost entries we could not and shall not share, for lack of space, above all.  Take me at my word:  the past months (and years), despite their fleeting character, have brought happiness & accord with my M.  

It seems fitting to use your last empty page to record that today saw two errors carefully righted in our nation's civil registry (not just one, as it would appear).  

This took place for reasons.  

Among them we may count the most recent harbinger of war in Europe, the gravity of which resonates with every man, such that we act upon personal decisions all the more daringly and purposefully. 

Now hear this -- one of the British nation's best-guarded secrets: ....

(That claim did not impress you, did it.  Ech.  But keep watching, dear book!  I will only write this once.)

 

Kind regards &c,

 

Alexander

George

Adalbert

Nussbaum

(Holmes)

I count on your forgetfulness. Or discretion.  Ha!

 

 

[FINIS]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, Marc, for the push to tell things Alex's way.  
> 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for A Bleeding Heart in Longhand by Serpentynka](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3462281) by [intensitycity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intensitycity/pseuds/intensitycity)
  * [Complaint for Alex and Carly](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3881119) by [intensitycity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intensitycity/pseuds/intensitycity)
  * [[Cover Art] for "A Bleeding Heart in Longhand" by Serpentynka](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4757996) by [Hamstermoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hamstermoon/pseuds/Hamstermoon)




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